Chicken Thighs, 4 Ways

My foodie love for Mark Bittman is well known. My friends will clip his recipes for me and I always get a phone call or two to let me know when he is going to be on the Today Show. A meal with Mark Bittman is on my bucket list.

I love Mark Bittman for a lot of reasons but the biggest reason is he is the first cookbook author whose food philosophy is the same as mine, which is fancy food is great but food doesn’t have to be fancy to be great.

I like that I can open his cookbooks to just about any page and find a recipe that uses things I have in my pantry right now. If for some reason I am missing an ingredient from the initial recipe, chances are I have every ingredient for one of the variations.

Mark Bittman is the one who turned me onto chicken thighs, a seriously underrated part of the chicken. Chicken thighs are cheaper than chicken breasts. Chicken thighs are dark meat so they are moister than chicken breasts so they are much more forgiving if they are overcooked, they don’t dry out as fast as chicken breasts.

If you have never tried chicken thighs before this recipe is a good place to start. The sauces are easy and result in a tasty chicken dinner.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

Ingredients
salt and ground black pepper
2 bone-in chicken thighs

Honey Mustard Sauce
1 TBS melted butter or canola oil
1 TBS Dijon mustard
1 ½ tsp honey

Ginger Soy
1 ½ tsp minced fresh ginger
1 TBS plus 1 ½ tsp soy sauce
1 TBS dark sesame oil

Chili Lime
1 TBS plus 1 ½ tsp olive oil
1 TBS fresh lime juice
1 ½ tsp chili powder
¾ tsp smoked paprika

Thai Sauce
1 TBS coconut milk
1 TBS smooth peanutbutter
¼ tsp curry powder

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Move the oven rack to the middle, if it isn’t already there. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small  bowl. Put the chicken in the roasting pan, skin side up, sprinkle with salt and pepper and brush with your sauce.  After the chicken has cooked for 10 minutes, baste again with the sauce and turn the pieces; brush the other side and roast for another 10 minutes. Turn the chicken over, brush again with the sauce, and roast for another 5 minutes or until the chicken is done.

Adapted from How to Cook Everything