How to make Balsamic Glazed Chicken!

Hey all my meal makers out there, welcome to making meals with Mika. So today we are cooking chicken. I know, but we're going to spice it up a little bit. So if you guys are like me, you are always looking for a way to kind of zhuzh up chicken, you know, because sometimes chicken can get redundant and it can get boring and you're like, oh my goodness, I need to, I need to, you know, zhuzh this up a little bit. So today I'm going to teach you how to make a balsamic glaze for your chicken. We're actually going to marinate it in the balsamic mixture, and we're also going to glaze it at the end. Now with this recipe, it's simple, it's easy, it doesn't have a lot of exotic ingredients, and the star is balsamic vinegar. Now you can grill this chicken if you want, you can pan fry it if you want, but I love it best baked. We're going to bake it in the oven, it's going to be nice and juicy and fall off the bone delicious. So let's get ready to make this chicken, make this meal with Mika. So let's make this beautiful marinade for the chicken. So you have your bowl, you have your whisk, you're going to start with about three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, then you're going to add to that three tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, you're going to do around two tablespoons of honey, I like organic honey, two tablespoons of Dijon mustard, and then you're going to do around two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. Now I put my hand over here to catch the seeds from the lemon, and I like to do fresh lemon juice, but you can get bottled if you like, it's whatever suits your fancy. Just get all that good lemon juice in there, and you're just going to whisk this around nicely, and you want to whisk it until it's all completely combined. Now a lot of times when people are doing marinades, they like to put, you know, the seasonings directly in the marinades, and I do that sometimes, but for this marinade, I'm not going to put the seasoning, the different herbs in the marinade, I'm going to put that directly on the chicken. So this is the consistency that you want, you want it thick enough that it's going to stick and hug every single inch of that chicken. So I have my chicken, now I have legs, drumsticks, same thing, and wings. Now this might seem like an odd combination, I love legs, my husband loves wings, so that's what we're going to cook. Now you're going to season these really, really heavily, both sides, with salt, black pepper, some garlic powder, a little red pepper flakes, you know we like it spicy, and some Italian seasoning. This has dried oregano in it, it has parsley in it, it has those really nice, it has basil in it, those really nice Italian seasonings. Now when I season my chicken, I always have one hand for mixing, and then my dominant hand for seasoning to control the amount. So you're going to get on up in there, to me this is the fun part, and just make sure that these are very nicely seasoned on both sides. Now you might ask, how come you don't want to put it in the marinade? If you want to put the seasonings in the marinade, you can, I just feel like if you season the chicken directly, the chicken is going to retain and hold the flavor. Because yes, we're going to marinate these, however, some of the marinade might run off, it just doesn't get all the way into the chicken like the seasonings do. So I just like to season my chicken directly, and it gives it more flavor. Now look at that, this is what your chicken should look like. This, if your chicken don't look like this, let me get it closer to the camera, if your chicken don't look like this after you get done seasoning, it ain't seasoned right. Look at all that, look at all that, now that's some good seasoning right there. Now that we got all the chicken nice and seasoned, oh and you guys might also notice that I take the flap off of my wing, I actually got that from my husband, it just makes them cook better. So I have my nice marinade that's been resting, and I like to put my chicken in a small bowl to make sure that that marinade, oh look at that, oh my goodness, look at that nice and sexy. Now I'm going to save a little bit of this, I'm going to save a little bit, maybe a couple of tablespoons so I can baste it while it's cooking. Now you can grill this chicken if you like, I'm going to bake mine because I feel like when you put it in the oven and you let it bake and you bake it for that 45, 50 minutes, oh my goodness, this is going to be like fall off the bone deliciousness, but this is a great marinade to grill, or you can use your air fryer if you want, if you got that grill component. So now I'm going to actually cover this up and put this in the refrigerator for a few hours. I'm going to take it out 20 minutes before I start to cook it. You always want to let your meat get nice and room temperature before you start to cook it, whether you're grilling it, you're frying it, you're baking it, you're sauteing it, just make sure you take it out 20 minutes before. So this looks great, I'm going to marinate this for about four hours. I'm going to take it out and we are going to bake this up. Y'all want to see something that's good, y'all want to see something? Look at that, my chicken is done marinating. Now what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take it, now as you can see, these are covered in the marinade, they are covered, right? They covered all the chicken, got some of that good marinade on it. So what I'm going to do now is I am going to let this sit out for 20 to 30 minutes, right? So it can get room temperature, then I'm going to put it in a baking dish, I'm going to bake it up and it's going to be delicious. So here's what your chicken, this is what your chicken should look like after it's been marinated. And the smell, I haven't started cooking it yet and the smell, y'all already know, it smells delicious. The chicken is room temperature, so I am going to first oil my baking dish just a little bit. Move that around in there, even though this is a non-stick dish, I still like to oil it. I'm going to take my chicken and just place these in here. And you just want to make sure that every piece has a nice place. Place these in here, then you see that good marinade, that's what's going to make our glaze. So just go ahead and pour that over that. Now I'm going to cook this uncovered in my oven at 375 for approximately 45 to 50 minutes for that beautiful fall off the bone glazed chicken. Let's put this in the oven. I just took the chicken out the oven, it's been cooking for about 45 minutes, y'all see that? So what I'm going to do is take my reserve glaze and I'm just going to glaze, put a nice healthy amount on every single piece. I'm going to put this back in the oven for about 10 minutes and then the last two or three minutes, I'm going to turn it on broil. So all this glaze could get nice and solidified. So this is going back in the oven for 10 minutes. I think my chicken is done, let's check on it. So here we go. I'm going to plate this up, but you see how nice and brown and it's going to be nice and crispy, but this is it. Plate this up with some vegetables and it's going to be absolutely delicious. It's time to eat. Thanks for making this meal with me.