A great dish to prepare ahead of time. Make the marinade in the roasting dish and add chicken breasts. Then simply transfer the dish from the fridge straight to the oven 40 minutes before you are ready to serve dinner.
This is Giada De Laurentis' recipe with an addition of tomatoes. I have made Giada's version many times and it is always good, so I suspect that this is very good as well. I usually leave out the lemon zest, use a cut up whole chicken and don't bother with the parsley. For those that question amounts, the mustard should be 1/4 cup and the balsamic vinegar 1/2 cup, olive oil 1/2 cup and 1/4 lemon juice (hopefully the juice of one lemon). Gilda's recipe calls for 3 cloves of garlic which I think make it very tasty. - 19 Jun 2016 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)
I marinated the chicken for 4 hours, however next time I'd probably prepare it in the morning and let the breasts marinate all day. Instead of marinating in a dish, I find it much easier to marinate in a ziploc bag (with air squeezed out) so that the chicken is evenly coated and you don't need to keep flipping the chicken. Do not omit the lemon! The tartness perfectly balances out the sweetness of the balsamic. Without the lemon, I found the chicken too sweet. My second bite had lemon on it and it was much better. Most importantly, 40 mins is much too long for chicken breasts at 400*F. I cooked the chicken for 20 mins, added the tomatoes, and cooked for 10 more. I might even cut back 2-3 more minutes next time, for a total of 27-28mins. A simple dish to prepare on those busy weeknights. Just pop in the oven when you get home from work. With a few tweaks, this could definitely be 5 star. I thought it was 3.5-4 stars but my boyfriend did not like it and asked me not to make it again. - 07 Jan 2015 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)
I've been making this for over a year now - I increase the mustard, leave out the zest and swap out the tomatoes for a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and I mix the can (with juice) into the marinade. This cuts most of the acidity of the balsamic while - 10 Mar 2016 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)