The Best Chicken Thigh Recipe EVER!

Today I'm going to show you how to make an oven-roasted chicken thigh with some asparagus and some fingerling potatoes. One of the good things we're going to do about this is we're going to use a lot of the same ingredients to season the chicken thigh, season the asparagus, and season the potatoes. And we're only going to use a single oven, and everything's going to cook all together. So this is going to make making our protein, making a vegetable, and making a starch pretty easy and convenient, and we're not going to make a big mess. So here are some free-range chicken thighs. I pulled these out of the refrigerator and I've kept them out for a little bit already just to bring them up to room temperature. One thing I also did too is I took a piece of paper towel and I patted the top of the skin dry just to make sure that we're getting out the moisture. Moisture is going to be our enemy when we're trying to get a nice crispy chicken skin. So let's pat those dry and really let them air dry out and come up to temperature before we start cooking them. Something else I always like to do is I always like to keep a shopping bag just rolled up and it'll just be my garbage. So as I'm cooking and I need to use the garbage, I don't have to go right back to the garbage. I'll throw everything in here, then when I'm done cooking, I'll take the bag and just throw it in the garbage. So we're going to take these and we're going to place them inside a bowl. We're going to drizzle a little bit of olive oil on top of the chicken and then we're going to use one hand and really make sure that we're coating the chicken top and bottom with that olive oil. Anytime we touch chicken, we're going to wash our hands immediately. Now to season the chicken, we're going to use two teaspoons of onion powder, three teaspoons of garlic powder, one teaspoon, a heaping teaspoon of Italian seasoning, one teaspoon of Himalayan salt, going to freshly grind some black pepper, and we're also going to add one teaspoon, approximately, not too much, but that's okay, of smoked paprika. It's going to add a real nice color and a real nice smoky flavor. And just like when we coated with the olive oil, we're going to get in there and we're going to rub this in and make sure that all these chicken thighs are nice and evenly coated with this spice rub. I like to take the pieces of chicken that don't have anything on them and rub them on the bottom and get all that spice rub from the bottom. We'll rub them together and make sure that they're nice and evenly coated. Always checking to make sure that we're getting some on the skins. I've taken a baking sheet and lined it with heavy-duty aluminum foil. This is going to save on cleanup a lot, and I do repeat heavy-duty. The regular aluminum foil usually isn't wide enough or isn't dense enough and oil usually gets through, so coating the pan with heavy-duty aluminum foil is really going to save on cleanup. So I have this raised grate on top of this baking sheet, which is going to allow the air to get underneath and get even cook all around. It's also going to allow the fat to drip down, so we're reducing the fat just a little bit and it's not cooking in its own juices. So now I'm going to arrange the chicken thighs. You can see that it has a bone side that's going to run lengthwise through it, so I'm going to place that bone side down, skin side up. I'm going to make sure that the skin is evenly distributed along the whole chicken thigh, and I'm going to put the bone lengthwise across the pan. I'm going to make sure that there's plenty of space in between the chicken thighs and they're not touching each other, because if they're touching each other, it's going to be hard for them to get that nice crisp on the outside. That same spice rub that I coated the chicken in, I'm now going to take and I'm going to sprinkle a little bit extra on top of the chicken skins. This is going to help pull out some of the moisture as we're cooking, and it's going to again help produce that crispy skin texture. We're also adding a lot of flavor and really enhancing that flavor of that chicken skin without adding a lot of calories or unnecessary fats through any type of sauce. So spices are a friend if we're trying to add a lot of flavor without really upling the calorie content of our food. I'm also just going to push these into the skin. We don't just want dry herbs hanging out on the outside of the skin. They will burn, so let's see what we can do to help it push into the skin and again pick up some of that moisture from the skin. I'm now going to put these chicken thighs on a top rack of a 400 degree oven. This oven's been preheated for a while, so we're going to put them on the top rack. You can see I've arranged the trays, so my asparagus is going to go right here, and then the potatoes right underneath. So now I'm going to cut my fingerling potatoes. Fingerling potatoes are very irregular shaped, so whenever cutting them, we're always going to place them on the cutting board whichever way that they sit. It would be much easier to cut it here where it sits naturally as opposed to cutting it like this. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to find again where that natural sit is, make sure I get my fingers out of the way, and just one nice cut right through the potato. And I'm going to continue to repeat that. It doesn't really matter if they're irregular or not, we just want to kind of split them and kind of get half and half. Normally, I will cut my potatoes one at a time, and then I'll just lift them into my bowl all the way at the end as opposed to lifting them in one at a time. Cooking's about efficiency, so you've got to figure out how do I become as efficient as possible and do the least by getting the same result. Anytime a potato will have maybe something a little rotten on it, I'm just going to cut that right off. I'll check it for any other rotten spots, seems to be pretty good, and again right through the middle. So now that I have potatoes in the bowl, I'm going to again gently drizzle them with some olive oil. I'm going to make sure that the potatoes are nice and coated before I put any herbs or spices in there. Here I don't have to wash my hand immediately because I have one dirty hand and one clean hand, so I'm going to take my clean hand, I'm going to grab my bowl, and I'm going to put the same herbs and spice blend that I put on top of the chicken, and I'm still going to reserve a little bit. And now I'm just going to give these potatoes a real nice coat. I'm going to take the potatoes, I'm going to throw them on a baking sheet. The potatoes are already covered in oil, so we don't need to add any extra oil to the sheet. And also this is a really nice non-stick sheet. Non-stick cooking is absolutely great, it allows you to use a lot less oil than you normally would, and not a big mess. So now I'm going to arrange them on the baking sheet, and I'm going to make sure that I go cut side up on everything. So I'm just going to move my fingers around the baking sheet and just make sure everything is cut side up. This is going to allow more air to move around the potatoes, and get us a crispier texture on the potatoes than if they were this side down. So now I've really minimized the surface that's going to be in contact with the air. I'm also going to make sure that I use the entire baking sheet, and I get, oop, one that's not cut, missed that one. Again, looking for any ones that are cut side down, and again I'm trying to make sure that I'm getting as much space in between the potatoes as possible, so that they're not touching, and again for that nice crispy texture, plenty of hot air around them. So now that my asparagus is arranged inside a baking sheet, I'm going to take a little bit of olive oil, and I'm going to drizzle it on top of the asparagus. Now I'm going to take again one hand, and I'm just going to roll the asparagus around just to make sure that it's nice and coated, there's good oil contact underneath, and the entire asparagus is getting coated. The tips tend to burn, so I'll just rub my fingertips over the tips, just to make sure that we're getting good oil contact on there, and nothing's too heavy. Now I'm going to take the remainder of our spice rub that we put on the potatoes and on the chicken thighs, and we're going to sprinkle it and season the asparagus, again same seasoning. The reason we're using the same seasoning on all three different food items is the seasoning, although it adds flavor, it reacts with the flavors of the food, so it's going to taste differently when it's on that chicken skin to oppose the potatoes and even these asparagus. I'm going to make sure that I get a nice even coat of seasoning, again I'll still take that dirty hand, and I'll rub and I'll make sure that I'm getting a nice even coating on the asparagus. One thing I'm also going to do too with the asparagus is I have a little bit of parmesan cheese here, in fact actually this is pecorino romano, freshly grated, and I'm just going to sprinkle just a little bit on there to just add a little depth of flavor. You can see I'm only using a little bit, I only had about two tablespoons in there, there's still about another tablespoon still left in there. After about 20 minutes in the oven, I'm going to pull these chicken thighs out, you can see they're starting to get a little bit cooked, they're starting to get some brownness on them, so now what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to flip them all over and I'm going to put them skin side down. What this is going to allow is this is going to allow the fat that's dripping down to start to coat the chicken, so we're going to use the chicken's own juice to help baste the chicken thigh and get that chicken really really crispy on the outside. So now that everything is flipped, I'm going to throw everything back in the oven, we're going to cook for another 20 minutes, skin side down, potatoes are going to take about 20 minutes and so are the asparagus. So the chicken is going to go back in the oven, chicken's going on the top rack, the potatoes I'm going to want pretty crispy so I'm going to make sure that those go on the bottom, they get plenty of air around them, and asparagus right in the middle, plenty of room. So while everything is cooking in the oven, I'm going to make my honey mustard sauce. So we're going to put three types of mustard in there, first we're going to put about a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, a tablespoon of coarsely ground spicy brown mustard, a whole grain mustard, I really like this for appearance because you get the whole mustard seeds in there and it really adds another texture element, I'm going to put a little lemon juice, put my hand underneath just to make sure to catch any seeds, a little bit of sea salt with some truffle essence, I love buying these at discount stores like Home Goods and Marshalls, they have great salts, great oils at a discount price so I'm going to put a sprinkle of that in there, a splash of some apple cider vinegar, and this is something that I got for Christmas so this is some honeycomb with black truffle infused into the honey. So I'm going to put this in there, you can use any type of honey that you'd like, this just happened to be the honey that I had and it goes really well with the chicken and the potatoes. I'm also going to add some freshly minced garlic and some chives and we're trying to mix to make sure we get a nice mixed taste, mmm that's delicious. We're going to let this sit inside the refrigerator while our food is cooking and let these flavors marinate and continue to develop. So while everything is cooking in the oven, I cleaned up my entire work surface, I took everything that I'm not using anymore, I put it back in the fridge, put it back in the pantry, the only thing I have left is lemon that I'm going to use to zest for some garnish and some of the chopped chives that I'm also going to use for a garnish. So I'm now going to take out my chicken for it's last flip and I'm also going to take out my asparagus, asparagus looks done. Potatoes will still stay in there because we probably want them a little bit crispier and I'm going to turn my oven up to 450 degrees to get a good crisp on the outside of the potatoes and the chicken. You can see that our chicken is pretty much cooked on this side but again we're going to flip it back over, we're going to expose the skin to the top again and you can see that the skin is half cooked, it's got a lot of the fat from the chicken marinated all the way through the skin so when we flip these over, when we put them back in that hot oven, the half cooked skin plus the fat from the chicken is going to produce a really, really nice crispy texture. If we have any more of the spice rub, which I do have a little bit, I am going to sprinkle just a little bit on there, again pulling off any moisture, really adding a lot of good flavor and I'm just putting a sprinkle so you don't want to make sure that you don't season the chicken too much when you first do it because you know you're going to be adding a lot more seasoning and that's a really, really well seasoned chicken thigh. I'm going to go back in the oven at 450 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes to get a good crisp on the outside. Now I'm going to pull our chicken out from the oven to see that our tops are super crispy. We're going to let these sit for a few minutes before we touch them, before we plate them. Just reacting with the air and cooling down a little bit is going to really add a really nice crispy texture. So now I'm going to arrange everything on my counter, so my asparagus, potatoes, really, really nice texture, really nice color and crisp on the outside of these potatoes and the chicken which you just saw, which we just pulled out. You can see even underneath that heavy-duty aluminum foil is really going to save me a lot of time cleaning up. So now let's plate. So the first thing I'm going to do when I'm going to plate, I'm going to get a nice good spoonful of our honey mustard and chive mixture. We're going to put that on the plate and a little bit of a smear. We're going to take our asparagus, maybe four or five stalks. We're going to put them towards the middle of the plate, little bit offset so we can get some of our potatoes on here. Going to take about six to seven of the fingerling potatoes. You can see they're beautifully crispy, really, really nice. You can hear that crackle when I touch them. And then we're going to take our best looking piece of chicken and we're going to put that right on top. To finish, we're going to take a little bit of the chives, sprinkle those on top. Let it kind of fall anywhere on the plate. And a little bit of lemon zest from that half a lemon that we used.