Chicken thighs are an affordable way to get protein into your diet. They are delicious and high in protein. In this recipe, I make chicken thighs with fresh herbs. The herbs I chose are rosemary and thyme, but you can use any fresh herbs you like.
I love making meat using a cast iron pan—it’s quick and tastes great. This recipe has a lot of flavour because I keep the chicken skins on and use butter for frying. If you are trying to avoid fat in your diet, feel free to remove the skin.
In this recipe I use rosemary and thyme as my fresh herbs, but you can use whichever herbs you like. I was lucky that my butcher offered free fresh herbs so I said yes. Feel free to use whichever herbs you can get your hands on.
Preheat the oven to 350ºF, and preheat the cast iron pan on medium low.
Ingredients
2 chicken thighs, bone in with skin
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme
A slice of lemon
1/2 tsp. of butter
Sea salt and pepper, to taste
Preparation
Toss the chicken thighs in the herbs, lemon juice, and add salt and pepper to taste.
Once the pan is hot enough (but not too hot), add the butter. I generally just splash a bit of water on it. If it sizzles a bit then it’s perfect, but if it sizzles a lot then it’s too hot. Adding the butter should make it sizzle and not burn. Burning the butter won’t make it taste very good.
Once the pan is the right temperature and the butter has been added, put the chicken thighs on, tops down, and leave for a few minutes. You want to leave them long enough so that the skin starts to caramelize and get crispy. This could be around 8 minutes.
Once the tops are crispy and browned, turn them over. At this time, the oven should be hot enough, and the chicken thighs should be moved to the oven. Put them in the oven and bake for approximately 20 minutes.
You don’t want to overcook them but you also don’t want to undercook them. Chicken thighs are high in fat and are hard to ruin by overcooking but are unpleasant when undercooked, so if in doubt, let them stay a bit longer.
Finish
And that’s it! Once they’re done, you can take them out, let them sit for a couple of minutes to let the juices settle, and then serve!
