Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs

The sweet-savoury glaze tastes like your favourite country-style rub, and the sauce is so good for drizzling over everything on your plate. Also – see how to use this as a marinade for Sticky GRILLED Chicken!

Boneless skinless chicken thighs in the oven!

We all love chicken thighs that have been cooked so they’re beautifully caramelised on the surface – like with everybody’s favourite pan seared Garlic Chicken Thighs. But we all have those days when we don’t want to deal with the spitting and splutter of chicken thighs in the pan. And we all also have those days when we haven’t planned for a particular recipe for that pack of chicken thighs in the fridge. Enter – Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs. Boneless skinless chicken thighs cooked in the oven that practically look like they’ve been seared on the stove made with ingredients I bet you already have!

The glaze – pantry staples!

Made with basic pantry staples with plenty of substitutions possible, this country-style sauce is adapted from these Baked Pork Chops. It’s savoury and a bit sweet, with great layers of flavour. Here’s what we’re using:

Worcestershire sauce – packs a ton of savouriness, plus you can give yourself a pat on the back for using it for something other than Bloody Mary’s 😂; Soy sauce – the “better than salt” way of adding salt to anything (more flavour); Ketchup – OR Aussie tomato sauce, BBQ sauce or other similar type sauces; Brown sugar – or honey or even maple syrup. Corn syrup, golden syrup or other such sweet things in liquid form should work just fine too; Garlic – because it makes everything better; Vinegar – because where we have sweet, we must balance with tang. Use apple cider vinegar if you have it, otherwise any other clear(ish) vinegar; and Oil – just makes the sauce a bit more interesting. You can skip it if you want.

Cooking boneless skinless chicken thighs in the oven

These baked chicken thighs are a mix, drizzle and bake job. The key here is baking on a high heat to get nice caramelisation – I bake the thighs at 220C/425F. For the best result, bake it for just over half the time, then finish with a broil/grill. This caramelises the surface really well, and this is my preferred method for baking chicken thighs. Boneless chicken thighs are cooked when the internal temperature is 75C/165F. However, because thighs are far more juicy than breast, they are more forgiving so don’t fret about exact cooking times. Yes, but the caramelisation isn’t as good. Directions in recipe notes!

Plenty of sauce for drizzling!

The other nice thing about this recipe is that there’s plenty of a lovely syrupy sauce to spoon over the chicken and everything else on your plate. The sauce is the reason why I like to bake AND broil/grill chicken thighs. While you get better caramelisation by just broiling, you don’t get pan juices. And for this quick meal, I want sauce because then it minimises the effort I have to go to for the sides! Mop all the sauce up with some crusty bread, or for something a little different, try this speedy Garlic Mashed White Beans (pictured below). ~ Nagi x

More quick Chicken Thigh recipes

These are all boneless chicken thigh recipes that don’t require any marinating time.

Garlic Chicken Thighs – crispy surface, fabulous garlic flavour Chicken Stroganoff – everything you love about Beef Stroganoff, but with chicken! Bacon Wrapped Chicken – Bacon. Chicken. You know it’s a winner! One Pot Chinese Chicken and “Fried Rice” – it’s fried rice and Chinese chicken, all made in one pot Honey Garlic Chicken – the 5 ingredient sauce is outrageously good! Oven Baked Chicken Breast – dry rubbed then baked, this recipe works 100% perfectly with thigh as well