Chicken with skin recipes is popular because chicken with the skin is tasty and the inside is clean meat and fats. Many recipes use whole chicken like roast chicken recipes, fried chicken recipes, and grilled chicken recipes. We have even selected our top 6 best chicken with skin recipes for you to get cooking!.
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Crispy Chicken Skins
- Level: Easy
Ingredients
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6 large skin-on chicken breasts
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon lemon pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary Add to Shopping List
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Gently pull the skin off the chicken breasts (reserve the breast meat for another use), pat dry and cut in thirds lengthwise. Place them skin-side up in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.
- Mix the salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary in a small bowl, crushing the spices with a spoon. Sprinkle the chicken skins with some of the spice mixes; it makes more than you need, but you can keep it for another day. Cover the skins with a layer of parchment and top with a baking sheet to weigh them down, making sure the top sheet presses down on the skins.
- Bake until the skins are browned and crisp, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the top baking sheet and parchment and transfer the skins to a plate lined with a paper towel to cool and crisp up.
Crispy Skin Chicken Thighs
Prep:5 mins
Cook:30 mins
Total:35 mins
Servings:6 servings
| Nutrition Facts (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 438 | Calories |
| 29g | Fat |
| 0g | Carbs |
| 46g | Protein |
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)SAVE RECIPE
If you like your chicken with crispy skin, this recipe is sure to please. And since you only need chicken, oil, and salt and pepper, it is a simple dish to put together last minute. Crispy skin chicken thighs make a fabulous everyday meal and are perfect for a picnic or tailgating event. Searing and then roasting the thighs in a heavy cast iron skillet makes them render more of their fat, which leaves the skin crispy and delicious.
Chicken thighs have become more popular over the past few years, and for good reason. The meat is affordable while being rich and flavorful compared to the milder tasting white breast meat, offering a satisfying taste all on its own. The one downside is that chicken thighs have more fat than breasts; this fat, however, is what helps make the skin crisp up perfectly.
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“This is a reliable method that yields satisfyingly crisp chicken skin with juicy and moist meat. I used a 12-inch cast iron skillet, which could fit 6 or 7 regular-sized chicken thighs. The key step is to fully render the chicken skin for the full 8 to 10 minutes before transferring it to the oven.
Ingredients
- 6 to 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, about 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 pounds
- Kosher salt, to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 to 3 teaspoons canola, or peanut oil
Steps to Make It
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- Gather the ingredients. Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 425 F (220 C/Gas 7).
- Pat the thighs dry with paper towels. Sprinkle generously on both sides with salt and pepper.
- Heat the oil in a large, heavy-duty, oven-safe skillet (cast iron is perfect) over medium-high heat.
- When the oil shimmers, arrange the chicken thighs in the skillet, skin-side down. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the skin is well browned, moving the thighs occasionally to make sure they are browning evenly. Do not turn them over.
- Place the skillet in the oven and continue cooking, skin-side down, until mostly cooked through, another 10 to 15 minutes. Turn over the thighs and continue cooking for 5 minutes longer.
- To test for doneness, insert a food thermometer into the thickest part of a thigh. The minimum safe temperature for chicken and other poultry is 165 F (74 C). Serve and enjoy.
Tips
- When cooking the chicken thighs, place a splatter screen on top of the skillet so you don’t get burned by any spitting oil that can occur when pan-frying; doing this will also keep your stovetop cleaner.
- If a lot of fat has been rendered in the skillet, spoon some off before transferring the skillet to the oven to avoid excessive smoking and spattering. Save the fat to roast potatoes and root vegetables, fry latkes, or make chicken liver pate.
- Don’t forget to use an oven mitt when transferring the skillet from the stovetop to the oven, and then from the oven to the counter. The panhandle will be very hot.
- A cast iron skillet is the ideal pan to use for this recipe as it retains heat very well and evenly. Long-lasting, inexpensive, and naturally nonstick, a cast iron skillet is a great pan to have in the kitchen.
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Variations
If your family is a fan of chicken thighs, you’ll be glad to know there are plenty of delicious recipes to choose from. For something crispy and delicious, try oven-fried chicken thighs with panko and Parmesan; the mixture of butter, maple syrup, mustard, honey, and garlic helps keep the coating of panko and cheese on the chicken while adding tremendous flavor. A packet of ranch salad dressing mix combined with oil and garlic turns chicken thighs into a zesty dish everyone will love; simply brush on the ranch mixture and bake. For a little taste of summer, whip up some oven-barbecued chicken thighs complete with a simple homemade sauce.
Why Isn’t the Chicken Skin Crispy?
If you find the chicken thigh skin isn’t as crispy as you would like, it could mean the skin may not have been dry before you added it to the oil. Make sure to pat the chicken dry before seasoning, and if you want even more assurance, place the chicken in the refrigerator, uncovered, to let the skin dry out a bit. Also, be sure the skin is pulled taut over the meat, and don’t move it around too much while cooking, or else the skin may tear.
What to Do With Leftover Chicken Skin
No matter how crispy and golden that roast chicken came out, there’s no escaping cold, flabby leftover chicken skin—unless you know the best way to re-crisp it.
Weeknight roast chicken is a dinner-table fixture at my house no matter the season. It’s the ultimate one-pan dinner and it’s so simple to throw together at the last minute: Brown a chicken in an oven-safe skillet on the stovetop, if it’s winter add mushrooms and whatever root vegetables are on hand (if it’s spring that veg might be new potatoes and asparagus), and finish everything in a 425°F oven for about 45 minutes. The result is chicken with the crispiest skin possible, vegetables cooked into schmaltzy submission, and (if you’re cooking for two as I do) enough leftovers for a righteous chicken salad or stir-fry later in the week.
The only issue? What to do with the leftover chicken skin. Even when reheated as is in a skillet, the skin stays limp and soggy—despite your best efforts to recreate the crisp chicken skin that made your original dinner so great, to begin with.
The trick? Remove the skin altogether. (But don’t throw it out!) Here’s how to reheat your chicken so that the skin gets as crispy as possible the second time around. (And before you ask, yes, this will work with store-bought rotisserie chicken skin too.
1. Remove the Skin
Start by peeling the skin from the cooked bird—this will be easiest if your chicken has been separated into parts (breast, leg, thigh, etc.), but you can also peel the skin from a whole chicken and tear it into bite-size pieces.
2. Warm a Skillet
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat in a skillet just until warm. You don’t want the pan to get too hot or you run the risk of burning the skin before it gets crisp.
3. Pan-Fry the Skin
Toss in the chicken skin in a single layer—you should hear a satisfying sizzle when the pieces hit the oil. Pan-fry each piece for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until golden brown. If one side of your pan is cooking faster than the other, feel free to move the chicken skin around as the pieces cook—you’re not trying to sear anything here. Instead, you’re rendering out the remaining fat and removing any moisture which is what caused that skin to go flabby in the first place. Moving the pieces around will help everything cook more evenly.
4. Remove and Drain Skin
Use tongs or a spatula to transfer the now shatteringly crisp chicken skin pieces to a paper towel-lined plate and let them cool briefly. Like bacon, they’ll crisp even further as they cool. Once you can touch them without burning your hands, they’re good to go.
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5. Don’t Forget About the Fat
After crisping the skin, schmaltz (aka that rendered chicken fat I mentioned earlier) will have mixed with the olive oil in your skillet. Take this flavorful opportunity to reheat the leftover chicken meat (or use it to start a stir-fry or to sauté vegetables) while the skin cools.
From there, the possibilities are virtually unlimited. Right now, I love to throw together a radicchio salad with watermelon radishes, parsley, and cooked chicken, topping the whole thing with a mustard vinaigrette and, yeah, crumbled bits of salty, fatty chicken skin. You might prefer scattering them over a grain bowl or this Filipino rice porridge. Or you could just stand there in your kitchen and eat them all before your housemates know what a good thing you’ve just done. Really. No one but you needs to know just how delicious leftover chicken skin can be.