14 Excellent Chicken Recipes You Should Know About – Part 2

Plus, a bonus recipe for quick and delicious chicken thighs.

Can you believe a week has already passed?  It feels like just seven days ago that I published a list of fourteen go-to chicken dishes that everyone should know about.  But of course, I offered up only seven chickens and then punted the rest of the listicle to this week.  Welp, we’ve finally arrived at part 2 of the list, and I do have a small confession:  I’m not sure that I have seven more chickens.  I thought I did, but there may have been a small counting error. And that’s okay!  We are all humans, especially those of us who write fledgling substack newsletters.  Turns out I only have thirteen go-to recipes in the quiver.

This may be a happy accident though because there’s a new chicken thigh on the block, and it’s looking like it may be quiver-ready.  Even more excitingly, it’s a Ben adaptation.  I’ll admit that the method is not very groundbreaking, but I gave it another road test this weekend, and I think it’s a winner!  So, congratulations new chicken thigh recipe:  you get to be #14.

Before we move forward, I’d like to announce that a feather on my sofa just startled me.  I’m channeling that intensity into this article.

Here is the next batch of go-to chicken recipes that I absolutely love.

Grilled Greek Chicken by Chef John, Food Wishes

Link:  https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2017/03/grilled-greek-chicken-happy-st-patricks.html

Chef John, king of the amiable cooking video genre, delivers a boneless, skinless chicken thigh with a classic Greek influence:  garlic, lemon, and oregano. But mostly garlic.  Not only is this dish bright and delicious, but it’s pretty healthy too.  Another one of those “I can’t believe chicken can be this good” recipes. Cooking this dish on a grill lends a smoky flavor and crisp edges, but I’m sure it would work equally nicely under a broiler or in a hot oven.  I’ve never seen this chicken NOT be a huge success.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Ketchup by Mark Bittman, The New York Times

Link:  https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/7878-stir-fried-chicken-with-ketchup

There’s a reason why this recipe has 5 stars with over 3,300 reviews:  it’s frickin’ delicious.  I know – the idea of serving ketchup as a star ingredient feels weird, but it’s really not that far removed from chicken slathered in BBQ sauce, at least conceptually.  In this recipe, NBD Fancy godfather Mark Bittman cooks ketchup and garlic together, which yields a surprisingly complex flavor. I also like to throw in some curry powder as an homage to the Indian restaurant in my hometown that serves a striking similar dish but with cauliflower.  Truthfully, you don’t have to be a ketchup fan to adore this sweet and tangy chicken — but it helps.  Serve it up as a fun main, or put a bunch of toothpicks in the pieces and offer it as an hors d’oeuvre. I love, love, LOVE this chicken.  Can barely stop eating it when it’s on the table.

Chicken Stew with Biscuits by Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa Family Style

Link:  https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chicken-stew-with-biscuits-recipe-1941446

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A post shared by Ben Mandelker (@benmandelker)

I didn’t include Ina Garten’s famous Perfect Roast Chicken here, but did you think I’d be so craven as to leave the Barefoot Contessa off the list entirely?  Of course not.  Well here she is, and not for the last time.  Ina’s Chicken Stew with Biscuits was a pandemic discovery for me, despite having been published years ago.  It’s essentially chicken pot pie, but in casserole form.  And instead of a crust, there are biscuits.  This is winter food perfection, and even though perfection can’t be improved upon, I’ve found that adding in red bell pepper and corn kernels only helps it become MORE perfect.  Also, I’m usually too lazy to make the biscuits from scratch; so I just plop a bunch of Pillsbury Grands on top of the stew. OR, if I’m really feeling like carbing it up, I just skip the biscuits altogether and top the dish with a sheet of puff pastry.  This is not health food; this is joy food.  Treat it as such.

Chicken Piccata by Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa at Home

Link:  https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chicken-piccata-recipe-1952866

This is actually a variation of Ina’s chicken piccata that uses chicken thighs and no breading. So, basically, a different dish. But it was closest photo I had to the real thing.

Might as well keep the Ina train rolling.  When I first began teaching myself how to cook, this Barefoot Contessa chicken piccata was one of my fanciest triumphs: I hadn’t just cooked chicken; I had floured it, dipped it, and mothereffin’ dredged it in breadcrumbs.  Wow.  I was basically a chef.  I’m sure an argument could be made that this lemony dish is what inspired me to forge ahead with more ambitious recipes in the kitchen, but honestly, that could just be sentimental crap.  All I know is that I cooked the hell out of this dish in the late 2000s, and it has never really left me.  It’s as delicious now as it was in the late Bush era.  Some may carp that it’s not a traditional piccata, to which I say — FEH.  It’s easy and delicious, and that’s all that matters sometimes.

Chicken in a Sweet Red Pepper Sauce (Lal Masale Wali Murghi) by Madhur Jaffrey, Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking

Link:  http://gourmaverett.pbworks.com/w/page/9690804/Chicken%20in%20a%20Sweet%20Red%20Pepper%20Sauce

Around 2010 I was mostly out of work, picking up odd jobs here and there and living paycheck to paycheck. Dining out was an increasingly difficult thing to justify, and so I attempted to learn some of the cuisines I loved eating at restaurants.  One of those was Indian — a vast and varied culinary tradition that I clearly had zero experience with.  Where to begin?  With Madhur Jaffrey of course.  Her classic book Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking was indispensable to me on this journey, and from it came this chicken dish.  The recipe relies upon a puree of aromatics and spices (think bell pepper, garlic, onion, cumin, coriander, almonds, and more) to create a rich and beautiful sauce to enrobe boneless chicken thighs.  Word of advice though: sometimes the sauce winds up way too thin.  Be sure to remove the cooked chicken from the pot and reduce the liquid until it becomes thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (or to whatever consistency works for you). The extra effort will yield a boldly flavored curry that earns bonus points for being not only delicious but dairy-free!

“Strange Flavor” Bang Bang Chicken (Bang Bang Ji) by Fuchsia Dunlop, The Food Of Sichuan: A New and Updated Edition of the Classic Land of Plenty

Link:  https://yogakitchen.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/strange-flavour-chicken/

“Strange Flavor” Bang Bang Chicken is a fast, simple dish with great flavor and heat, and most importantly, it requires minimal effort to assemble.  This Szechuan specialty is basically chicken tossed with a dressing, and what a dressing it is:  sweet, nutty, numbing, salty — all the fun stuff.  If you’re able to source ingredients such as Chinkiang vinegar and Chinese sesame paste, you’ll be in for a treat, but rice vinegar and tahini do a fine job too.  I love this as a lunch option or a perfectly lovely dinner.  Always works.

Pan Roasted Chicken Thighs with a Lemon Sauce by Me (with heavy influences from Mark Bittman and Ina Garten)

Link:  YOU ARE ALREADY HERE

Okay, here’s the backstory on this recipe.  I attempted to make Mark Bittman’s Chicken with Vinegar during the pandemic, but unfortunately, the sauce read more like a battlefield chemical agent than it did a bright accompaniment.  It was… intense. I’m talking burn-your-eyes-from-the-vapors acidic.  However!  The chicken thighs were perfection.  And so I basically merged this recipe with Ina Garten’s piccata to form a new chicken baby.  I’m not sure if I’ve added enough to make this *my* recipe, but it’s certainly a full-throated adaptation! Here’s how it works:

Pan Roasted Chicken Thighs with a Lemon Sauce

Ingredients:

4 chicken thighs, skin-on bone-in – about 2 lbs.  Nothing too small.

Salt and pepper

Extra Virgin olive oil

Lemon

2 pats of butter (about 2 tbs)

1-2 cloves of garlic

Optional add-ins: White wine, capers, parsley, dill, chives

The Steps:

1.     Prep:  Preheat the oven to 450° F.  Season the thighs all over with lots of salt and pepper. Be very generous with the salt — perhaps more than you think you should be.

2.     Time to Sear:  Heat 2 tbs of the olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.

a.     A cast iron skillet is ideal, but if you don’t have that, just make sure whatever you use is oven-safe at 450° F.

b.     I like a 10” skillet for this, but if your chicken requires space to live its truth, by all means go bigger.

3.     When the oil is very hot, place the thighs skin side down into the skillet and let sit for 6-10 minutes.  The larger the thighs, the closer to 10 minutes you’ll be.  Don’t touch!  Just let them turn golden.

a.     There will be splatter.  Lower your temp if necessary.  I do the ol’ lower the temp and then slowly raise it again, which usually works, but sometimes it’s just me being a busybody.  The key here is to not cause a mess / fire.

4.     Turn the thighs over with some tongs and cook for another 3-4 minutes.

5.     Oven time:  Place the skillet in the hot oven and bake for 15-20 minutes.  I find that 18 is the sweet spot, but big thighs will need a full 20. 

6.     Use this downtime to finely chop your garlic for the sauce. If you want herbs, this is your chopping moment.

7.     Remove the skillet from the oven and place it on your stovetop.  Transfer the thighs to a baking dish or small sheet pan, and put them back in the oven.  Cut the heat and crack the door a little.  Let the thighs sit in the residual heat for about 4 minutes or so. (credit Mark Bittman for this technique)

8.     Make the sauce:  While the thighs sit in the oven, make a simple pan sauce.  Pour out all but 2 tbs of the accumulated fat and juices, and then casually squeeze half a lemon into the skillet.  Add the butter and garlic and swirl it all around with a wooden spoon until a sauce sort of comes together.  You won’t need to even turn on the stove because your pan should be lethally hot.  Check for seasoning.  It may taste sharp from the lemon; so add a pinch of salt.  The end product should be silky, sour, salty, and garlicky.

a.     This is not a pretty sauce.  It will look clearish with murky brown streaks of chicken gunk and bits of garlic.  That’s okay.  Gunk ‘n’ garlic is what you’re going for.

b.     If the sauce needs more body, add more butter.

c.     In the absence of lemon (or in addition to), some rice or white wine vinegar also makes for a great sour option.

d.     A small glug of white wine is also a fun touch here, but I’d put the flame on medium low to cook it out a bit.

e. This is a great time for capers. Swirl them in if you’ve got them.

9.   Remove the chicken from the oven and pour the sauce over it.  If you’re feeling herby, scatter some finely chopped parsley, dill, or chives on top. Enjoy your amazingly crispy, deeply juicy chicken thighs.

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Hope you’ve enjoyed this list and bonus recipe. Leave a comment with your favorite chicken recipes and methods. Thanks!