Dijon Braised Chicken Thighs
These Braised Chicken Thighs are comfort food at its best. Crispy chicken thighs braised in a Dijon sauce with potatoes. I could eat this every day.
Dijon Braised Chicken Thighs
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One of my favorite things about blogging is seeing people that I’ve followed for years do awesome things. Case in point: Oh Sweet Basil! Cade and Carrian are an amazing duo and they make some seriously killer recipes. They like to describe their food as “Southern comfort with a little farm-to-table.” That seems to make sense to me (and makes me hungry). I recently got my hands on their just-released cookbook and the first thing I had to try immediately were these Dijon Braised Chicken Thighs!
Chicken thighs are such an under-utilized cut (which is sort of nice because they tend to be cheap), but they are my personal favorite. If cooked right, the skin gets nice and crispy and they are almost impossible to overcook which isn’t true for most other cuts of poultry.
This braised chicken thighs recipe treats them perfectly. Braising them keeps them juicy and the potatoes that cook in the same skillet are killer. Check out the full recipe below and check out their book!
Dijon Braised Chicken Thighs
Ingredients
- 4-5 bone-in chicken thighs skin on
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- Ground black pepper
- ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
- ¼ cup Dijon mustard
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- 6 slices bacon optional
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 small yellow onion chopped
- 1 ½ pounds yukon potatoes chopped
- 1 ¼ cups chicken broth
- Fresh parsley garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper.
- In a bowl, stir together vinegar, garlic, mustard, sugar, and paprika.
- In a heavy, oven safe skillet, cook bacon if you’re using it until crispy over medium heat. When bacon is crispy remove to a plate with some paper towels to drain. Then chop. Pour off bacon grease, leaving 1 tablespoon in the skillet.
- Return skillet to stove and turn heat up to medium-high. If you didn’t use bacon, add 1 tablespoon of neutral oil to the skillet. Add the chicken, skin-side down, and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook for about 5 minutes until skin is golden brown. Flip and cook for another 5 minutes. Then remove chicken to a plate.
- Add butter to skillet along with onion and cook until soft (3-4 minutes). THen add potatoes and cook for 4-5 minutes.
- Nestle chicken pieces back in the skillet, skin-side up. Pour over sauce.
- Bring mixture to a simmer on the stove, then transfer to the oven to braise for 40 minutes until chicken thighs are cooked through.
- Remove from the oven and garnish with reserved bacon and parsley.
Notes
Nutrition
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Tips for Making Braised Chicken Thighs
Here are a few tips for making good braised chicken thighs!
- Make sure to buy bone-in and skin-on whole chicken thighs. They take longer to cook, but end up being more moist and are almost impossible to overcook.
- Sear the chicken thighs before you start to braise them to promote browning.
- Use homemade chicken stock if you have it, but the sauce in this particular recipe is so flavorful that it isn’t 100% necessary.
- Use a cast iron skillet for best searing and then you can transfer the same skillet straight to the oven to braise!
Dijon Braised Chicken Thighs
Get some nice big chicken thighs for this recipe. One thigh should be enough for a serving. Be sure to buy the ones with the bone-in still and the skin on. Season them really liberally with salt and pepper.
The sauce for this recipe is amazing. A simple mix of apple cider vinegar, mustard, paprika, and garlic. I think this would also be a great sauce on pork, but it goes well on chicken for sure.
The original recipe calls for crisping some bacon in the skillet as a first step. Hey, guess who forgot to get bacon at the store? THIS BLOGGER.
I’m sure that the recipe is even better with bacon because how could it not be?
But, it’s also delicious without it as it turns out. The only real change is instead of browning the chicken thighs in the bacon grease, you’ll have to add a drizzle of neutral oil to the skillet to help them brown. Let them cook for about five minutes per side so the skin starts to crisp up a bit.
Then remove the chicken (which is still basically raw at this point). Add the butter to the skillet along with the onion. Cook that for a few minutes and then toss in the potatoes.
Cook those for a few minutes and then nestle the chicken thighs back in the skillet. Sauce time!
Add the chicken stock to the skillet and bring the mixture to a simmer. It’ll look like a lot of liquid, but don’t worry. It thickens nicely.
Bring the mixture to a simmer on the stove, but then transfer it immediately to a 450 degree oven to braise for about 40 minutes.
The flavors in this recipe are all some of my favorite. The apple cider and mustard are so savory and wonderful when they thicken up in the sauce.
This Dijon Braised Chicken Thigh recipe is one I’ll make again, for sure.
i look forward to fresh from the garden basil this summer
I haven’t braised chicken thighs before, but usually when I buy them because they’re cheap, they turn out to be so ridiculously fatty that once I’ve cut off the major hunks, I wonder if I’ve actually saved any money at all?
Wow! That looks so good. I cannot wait to try it.
Looks good. Good I use a dutch oven instead of a cast iron skillet? One more question: We have a family of 5 (3 teenagers), so I often have to double recipes. Would this double well?
Hey Erin! I think it would double just fine, but I would be careful to keep the stuff all in a single layer so the chicken thighs stay crispy..if you stacked them in a dutch oven they woudl just get soggy. If I were going ot double it I’d brown the thighs in a skillet and then make the potato mixture in the skillet, but then transfer everything to a large baking dish so it was all in one layer and braise that. Hope that helps!
Love me some chicken thighs! They are so easy to cook and so tasty and so cheap! Thanks for this new recipe to try, and for the giveaway! YUM
chicken thighs are my favorite, but i use the skinless and boneless for a lighter version. will make this on my next menu. thanks for the giveaway!
I love chicken thighs but have never thought of braising them until now. Thanks for the great recipe and giveaway.
Love Dijon anything!
This looks tasty!
I love to cook a whole value pack of thighs at once and use for lunches or freeze for pizza and salad on lazy nights.
Yes, I’ve tried braised chicken thighs and it’s what made me like thighs. Before that I never cooked them.
Love chicken thighs and can’t wait to try this. Thanks for the post and the giveaway.
I’ve been vegetarian for 20+ years so I’ve definitely never braised chicken wings but I’m so glad you brought my attention to the Oh Sweet Basil blog because they have a LOT of very tasty looking recipes! (And that heirloom tomato tart on the cover of their book looks divine!)
I haven’t, but it looks really good!
I LOVE chicken thighs! Definitely pinning this to make this week.
I haven’t, but these look so good.
Love any recipe that uses the oven ! Will be adding this recipe to this weeks meal plan.
Yum! I love thighs and this recipe sounds delish! Can’t wait to try it!
These look amazing…I am definitely going to try this one! I bet even my picky family would love them!
No, I have not tried them.
This looks amazig. I love your blog!
Oh yum! Just found your blog and bookmarked it. Great recipes! Please enter me in the giveaway.
I haven’t tried braised chicken thighs. Will have to give it a shot.
I haven’t tried these yet, but they look delectable!!
This dish is as good as advertised! Cooking time in my oven was a bit different – 20 minutes to 165 degrees instead of forty – but other than that recipe is a winner. Try it you’ll love it!
Made this for dinner this evening. Very tasty, I will definitely be cooking it again.
Thank you for sharing!
the printed instructions do not mention putting the chicken stock in.
the instruction with pictures does….
I’ve made this recipe several times and it is so savory and delicious I could eat it weekly. We love making this for Sunday dinner in the winter months. The crispy chicken skin is so good and the Dijon sauce is just to die for. I give this recipe a 12/10. I never had bone in chicken thighs until this recipe and am now obsessed!
Should the chicken broth be mixed with the other sauce ingredients? Or, should the broth be added to the skillet and then the sauce poured over the thighs, so it creates a coating and isn’t diluted?
What the hell is the sugar for? It’s listed as an ingredient but is not mentioned in the recipe. Does anyone proof read this?
No one seemed to notice she never said where the sugar goes and when or where to use the stock until the very end when she said to add it. But then where is the sauce we made ? Did any of you actually MAKE this recipe and follow her directions ? It’s a mess?