Ree Drummond One Pan Chicken Thighs With Garlic

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Chicken thighs are my life. Absolutely, positively my life. If I had to choose a cut of chicken to eat the rest of my days, I would choose thighs every day of the week, and nine hundred times on Sunday. I always wonder why breasts get all the dang attention in this world. Thighs are the way to go, baby!

(Sorry. There's just no elegant way to talk about breasts and thighs without sounding immature.)

(Or maybe I'm the one that's immature. I seem to be the only one snickering.)

ANYWAY, ANYHOW, ANYHOO…this is a loose adaptation of an old Emeril recipe and can be changed up however you'd like in order to send the flavors in different directions. This is a lemon/chicken/wine/broth approach, but you can add herbs, a little tomato paste, a splash of cream at the end—seriously, anything goes.

Here's how I make 'em!

First, dice up an onion so it'll be ready.

Then add some olive oil to an ovenproof skillet and turn the heat to medium-low to start heating it up.

Grab the chicken thighs and sprinkle them generously with salt and pepper on both sides….

Then violently hurl them into a bowl of seasoned (with salt, pepper, and whatever else you want) flour…

Turning them over to dredge and shake off the excess.

Set them on a plate until the oil is nice and hot and ready.

Set the chicken, skin-side down, in the pan.

I love the skin side.

Move the thighs around, shake the pan, whatever you need to do for the next 3 or so minutes in order to ensure that the first side gets evenly golden brown and doesn't burn. Keep your eye on 'em!

Then turn 'em over and let 'em cook on the other side for a minute or two.

Remove them to a plate and set them aside for a minute. (You don't need to cook them through at this stage! They'll go in the oven here in a minute.)

Back to the skillet: If there's a lot of grease in the pan, pour off all but about 1/4 cup. Then add the onions to the pan…

Along with some minced garlic. I actually added twice this amount! The garlic makes it so durn good.

Oops! I forgot to take pics of the onions cooking, but basically, you want to stir them around and cook them for a couple of minutes until they start to soften. Then pour in some white wine and let it cook/reduce for a minute as you stir and scrape the pan.

Next, pour in some chicken broth. Now, if you would rather not use wine, or if you don't have any wine, just use all broth—it'll still be delicious.

Now you just need to cook the liquid for a minute or two to let it reduce. If you need to, splash in a little more broth (if it evaporates/reduces too fast.)

Next, whack a lemon in half…

And squeeze in the juice, using your hand as a sieve so the seeds won't wind up in the dish.

Oh, and add some lemon zest, too! If you're a normal person who plans ahead, you will have zested the lemon before you halved and juiced it. But I don't operate that way…unfortunately.

In any event, just add half the zest to the skillet, because you'll need the rest later!

Oh, and you can add more lemon if you'd like. Whatever your acid-loving heart desires.

Stir some salt and pepper into the liquid, then nestle the chicken thighs, skin side up, into the liquid. There shouldn't be a ton in the pan—But make sure there's enough to slightly slosh around.

Now, cover the skillet—which, in my case, means inverting a second skillet on top…but if you have a lid, that works swimmingly—and put it in a 350 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes. This will allow the chicken to start to cook through and stay nice and moist!

After that time, remove the lid…

And carefully spoon the liquid over each chicken thigh. This coats it with the flavor, but it also gets some of the onions on top of the thighs…and I'll show you the global significance of that here in just a moment.

Before I do that, pop the skillet back into the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes…

Until it's sizzling and beautiful. And just look at those onions! They're like a little bonus.

And remember that remaining lemon zest? Just stir it into some cooked rice along with a sprinkling of salt.

Pile it onto a plate…

Grab one of those sensationally succulent thighs…

And put it on the side of the rice, spooning the cooking liquid all over the top.

Oh, and while the chicken was in the oven, I made some super simple green beans. Lemme show you what I did.

Small iron skillet. Butter. Medium-high heat.

Sad, pallid green beans. But I'm about to make 'em delicious!

Throw them into the pan…

And cook them until they're starting to blister (you might need to turn the heat up to high for this!) Use tongs to move them around the pan.

When they have great little blackened areas, turn the heat to low and pour in some soy sauce. Not a ton, just enough to coat the beans.

Stir them around until the soy just becomes part of the mix…and that, my green bean loving friends, is it.

This makes a lovely, lovely dinner.

Some oven-roasted grape tomatoes would also be nice. But I didn't have any in my fridge, so I'll just save that dream for next time.

And as usual…the chicken thighs totally came through for me. Moist, flavorful, beautiful.

Below is the handy dandy printable! But before that, here are some of my favorite recipes made with chicken thighs:

Penne with Chicken Thighs

Linguine with Chicken Thighs

Cashew Chicken (yum!)

Orange Chicken (double yum!)

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Ree Drummond One Pan Chicken Thighs With Garlic

Source: https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a85219/pan-roasted-chicken-thighs/

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