It is time to tune up your bland baked chicken with the best chicken thigh recipe. With this simple recipe that you can cook in minutes, you don’t have to worry about boring chicken thighs in the weeknight meals again. Not saying that chicken thighs are boring, but by using only these eight ingredients, you can create the sweet baked chicken thigh. It is a simple yet a big game changer that will make the recipe to be your ultimate trump card at boring weeknights. Now, let’s start the recipe by looking at these ingredients.
Ingredients:
- Olive oil, 3 tablespoons
- Soy sauce, 3 tablespoons
- Honey, 5 tablespoons
- Garlic, 4 cloves. You can also substitute with garlic powder; use around 1/2 a teaspoon.
- Ginger, preferably grounded, 1/2 a tablespoon
- Ground pepper, 1/2 a teaspoon
- Chicken thighs, 3 pounds. You can substitute with any chicken meat you prefer.
- Salt, to taste
- Pepper, to taste
- Citrus juice or vinegar. This is used if you want to marinade the chicken thighs for a day. So, this is optional.
Cooking Instructions:
- Mince the garlic and ginger (if you’re not using powders).
- Add the minced or powder ingredients into the zip bag with the olive oil, soy sauce, honey, ground pepper.
- Take your chicken thighs and put it inside the zip bag. It’s recommended to put in inside one by one, so you can coat the thighs with the marinade mixture easily.
- Make sure to evenly coat the chicken thighs inside, so the marinade can properly settle and be absorbed. Refrigerate the thighs for 15-30 minutes. This best chicken thigh recipe can be marinaded for up to a day with an additional vinegar or citrus juice. The longer you marinade the more it absorbs the flavor and tenderizes the meat.
- Preheat your oven to 425° Fahrenheit.
- When your chicken thighs are ready, add the thighs with the marinade into the baking dish. Put the thighs side by side as a single layer with the skin side up.
- Bake the thighs for 25 minutes in 425° Fahrenheit.
- Take out the chicken, then flip it with the meat side up and cook it for 10 minutes more in 425°.
- Take out the chicken again, then flip it back with skin side up and bake again for 10 minutes in 425°. This is done so the skin will become crispy.
- Take out the chicken after 10 minutes and measure the internal temperature. If it reads at 165° Fahrenheit, then your best chicken thigh recipe is ready to serve and eat!
A bit of note for this recipe: you can skip the whole flipping the chicken thing. However, your chicken thighs may end up with one side being too dry. The marinade will also go well if you want to make grilled chicken, although the cooking steps may differ a bit. This best chicken thigh recipe is easy to whip out, but for maximum effect, you should marinate the chicken a day before or in the morning.