Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini

Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini combines crispy Parmesan chicken tenders with tasty seasoned zucchini, and they cook all on one pan! Plus the best three-ingredient chicken dipping sauce!

Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini

We love this meal — it’s fresh, flavorful, and the chicken is ridiculously crispy! The zucchini is deeply savory with a cheesy, crunchy coating and the dipping sauce is the perfect finishing touch.

The dipping sauce is a sweet honey BBQ mustard that pairs wonderfully with both the chicken and the zucchini. Plus, it’s only three ingredients!

How To Get Crispy Baked Chicken

It can be tricky getting crunchy, crispy chicken tenders without a deep fryer (or an air fryer), but we’ve got a few tricks in this recipe to ensure ultra-crispy chicken without sacrificing nutrition. Here’s what we do:

1. Use panko breadcrumbs. Panko bread crumbs are similar to regular bread crumbs, but they create a much crunchier, lighter, and more delicate result. Using panko ensures a crunchier end product than regular bread crumbs.
2. Add Parmesan cheese to the breading. Parmesan cheese crisps so nicely when baked, so when you add it to the batter–more crisping takes place.
3. Spray the chicken with cooking spray. The cooking spray not only keeps the chicken from sticking to the wire cooling rack, but also contributes to the crispy texture.
4. Bake on a wire cooling rack. If you have a wire cooling rack, place it right on top of a sheet pan and bake the coated chicken tenders on top. This ensures more even circulation of heat in the oven which results in crispier chicken all around (as opposed to just being crispy on one side). Bonus: Any panko coating that falls off the chicken gets nice and toasty on the sheet pan which we can then toss with the zucchini– making them even that much tastier!

Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini Process Overview

This recipe is fun because we get perfectly crisp-tender zucchini and crunchy chicken tenders all at the same time. Here is a quick overview of how to make this recipe.

• Start by tossing together the seasoning mix. While we get the oven nice and hot, quickly mix the seasonings. The seasoning blend is made once and used twice in this dish!
• Next we prep the chicken and place prepared chicken tenders on a generously greased, oven-safe wire cooling rack.
• We then cut the zucchini. Add the zucchini to the pan with some olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the seasoning blend.
• Move zucchini to make room to position the cooling rack (with chicken on top) on the tray. Space out the zucchini surrounding the cooling rack, but also so it’s not overlapping and has plenty of space to roast.
• Bake for 10 minutes then remove the pan, toss around the zucchini and flip the tenders. Return to the oven for 7-10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and zucchini is tender.
• If the zucchini isn’t quite tender to your liking, but the chicken is cooked through, simply remove the wire cooling rack with the chicken on it and place the zucchini back in for another few minutes.

Let’s Chat Zucchini

The zucchini is perfectly crisp-tender in this Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini. Crisp-tender means it’s been cooked all the way through, but still has some “snap” to it. It is tender in the way that a knife can easily sink through it, but crisp meaning the zucchini still has structure and a slight crunch.

Since there are few things worse than mushy zucchini, you can rest assured, this recipe will not deliver that. To ensure crisp-tender zucchini, look out for a few things:

• Use fresh zucchini. If the zucchini feels soft, it’s not a great candidate for crispy roasted zucchini; it should be firm to the touch.
• Don’t peel the zucchini. No need to peel the zucchini before chopping and roasting. The skin on properly cleaned zucchini is perfectly safe to eat–in fact, it actually has a lot of nutritional benefits!
• Cut zucchini pieces into even-sized wedges. The bake time can be tricky if the zucchini are all different sizes; take the time to cut the zucchini pieces as evenly as possible.
• Don’t crowd the zucchini. Avoid crowding the zucchini together, so they can get more of a roasting effect from being baked. Air circulation helps the browning process. Overlapping zucchini will steam and become more watery instead of crisp and caramelized.

Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini Seasoning Mix (one mix–two uses!)

This recipe starts with a simple seasoning mix that we split into two parts. One part seasons the zucchini and the other seasons the chicken tenders!

The blend contains Italian seasoning, dried parsley, garlic powder, paprika, salt, onion powder, dried basil, and pepper.

We keep the salt relatively low for the amount of chicken and zucchini in this recipe because there is so much Parmesan in this dish (Parm is salty). If you find the flavors lacking or less exciting than hoped, you may just need an extra pinch of salt at the end! Give the zucchini and chicken a quick taste test before serving and adjust as needed.

Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini Dipping Sauce

We love a good chicken dipping sauce and this one does not disappoint. There are only three ingredients, which I’ll explain below. (None of the products recommended are sponsors of the site.)

• Fresh (refrigerated) coleslaw dressing. We like Litehouse® or Marie’s® best.
• BBQ sauce. We like Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey BBQ® sauce best.
• Yellow mustard. Not to be confused with Dijon mustard (which is in the chicken batter) — the two aren’t the same.

Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini Recipe Tools

The following products are what I personally recommend for making this recipe:

• 15×21-inch extra-large sheet pan. To fit both the zucchini and chicken on a wire cooling rack on one sheet pan, you’ll need a 15×21 inch sheet pan. Otherwise, you may need to use 2 smaller pans. Additionally, the more space the zucchini and chicken have (and the less crowded they are) the better they roast in the oven.
• Veggie turner. To quickly flip the chicken tenders and toss the veggies, I love using this metal spatula.
• Cooling racks. To ensure ultra-crispy chicken, we bake it on a cooling rack. Be sure the cooling rack you’re using is indeed oven safe and a size that will fit comfortably on the 15×21-inch sheet pan!
• Cooking spray. Once all the tenderloins are battered and breaded, they need to be sprayed with cooking spray. This promotes crisp, even browning in the oven and results in seriously crispy, crunchy chicken! We typically use olive oil cooking spray which can be found near the different types of oils in the grocery store.

Sheet Pan Chicken and Zucchini Storage

This recipe is best enjoyed immediately after being made. The tenders don’t stay crispy when stored, so I recommend cooking only enough for one meal or what will be enjoyed that same day.

As far as making it ahead of time, it can be done, but I recommend waiting to dredge the tenders in the panko-Parmesan mixture until right before baking. Otherwise, the breading will get soft and the chicken won’t be near as crispy/crunchy after baking.

More One-Pan Dinner Recipes

• One Pan Italian Sausage and Veggies with a simple Italian seasoning blend
• Sausage and Chickpeas with sweet potatoes
• Mini Meatloaf with mashed potatoes & green beans
• One-Pan Jambalaya with seasoned shrimp
• Creamy Pesto Orzo made with sweet corn and peas