This is a SUPER EASY meal that you can PREP in just 5 MINUTES that proves cooking healthy doesn’t have to be expensive or a giant time suck.
Sweet, salty, sticky chicken…sounds DELICIOUS right?! Just throw a handful of ingredients in a pan, bake it, and it’s amazing!! Dinner just got real easy (we did say it will only take 5 min.) Pop in the oven and bake. Less than 1 hour later it’s time to dish out this incredible meal. THIS ONE IS A KEEPER!
VERYYY IMPORTANT NOTE – line the baking dish with foil AND parchment paper! This is a gooey glaze and if you just use parchment paper, you’ll be using some extra elbow grease for some serious scrubbing. So just take our word for it and do it right the first time!!
PREP TIME: 5 mins
COOK TIME: 50 mins
SERVES: 6
INGREDIENTS:
- 6 bone in, skin on chicken thighs, about 2 lb/1kg
- 1 red onion, cut into wedges
Glaze
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tbsp honey
- 3 tbsp soy sauce (Note 1)
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or ordinary white vinegar
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 2 tsp sesame seeds (optional)
- Garnish (optional)
- Sesame seeds
- Fresh coriander/cilantro leaves
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F (fan forced) or 200C/390F for conventional.
- Line a baking dish with foil then parchment paper. The baking tray should fit the chicken comfortably, not too spaced apart (glaze will dry out), not too snug (glaze won’t thicken enough).
- Mix the Glaze ingredients together.
- Place onion and chicken in the baking dish skin side down, then pour the Glaze over.
- Bake for 25 minutes, then turn and bake for a further 25 to 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the glaze is sticky. If the glaze is not syrupy, remove the chicken onto a plate and put the pan back in for a few minutes.
- Tilt baking dish and spoon out excess fat. Turn chicken skin side down and squish around in the glaze to coat it.
- Serve with rice and steamed greens, sprinkled with sesame seeds and fresh cilantro/coriander leaves.
SIDE NOTES:
- This recipe requires ordinary, all purpose soy sauce. Not light or dark or sweet soy sauce (check the label, if it has any of these words on it, it’s not suited to this recipe.)
- It is safer to make this in a smaller rather than large pan, then if the Glaze hasn’t reduced enough at the end, take the chicken out and put the pan back in the oven, it should thicken very quickly. Then return the chicken to the pan and roll in the Glaze.
- This works very well with skinless boneless chicken thigh fillets.
- It doesn’t work as well with drumsticks because the shape of them restricts the ability to coat into the Glaze, and also they aren’t as juicy as thigh so the glaze dried out too much.
- This recipe doesn’t make a ton of sauce (so don’t worry, that’s how it’s supposed to be) because it is quite strong in flavor. It reduces to a jammy sticky glaze, enough to coat the chicken. That’s all you need!