Description
Calling all chicken thigh lovers! I’ve got an awesome recipe for crispy chicken thighs with parmesan caper sauce. You’re gonna love it.
Ingredients
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- 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 5 tablespoons salted butter, cubed
- 1 tablespoon onion, finely diced
- 1 teaspoon fresh garlic, finely diced
- 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar (or reg. white vinegar)
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon capers, plus splash of caper brine
- 1-2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill for garnish
- Salt and pepper to season chicken
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Instructions
- Take a few minutes to trim the fat from the chicken thighs. Get a pair of good kitchen shears and start with obvious flaps of fat around the edges. We want to keep the top skin intact because we’re going to crisp that up when cooking. But you want to get as much of the other fat as possible trimmed off. For all the info on trimming the fat – you should watch my tutorial.
- Season both sides of the chicken thighs with salt and pepper. I would say a ½ to ¾ teaspoon of salt total and about ¼ teaspoon of pepper total should do the trick. After seasoning the chicken, I like to let it set for a few minutes. This would be a good time to organize the rest of your ingredients and get ready to prep.
- Heat a large oven-safe skillet on medium heat and wait until it’s hot to add the chicken thighs skin-side down. Cook on medium-to-high heat or 8-10 minutes until the skin has crisped a little and it slightly golden brown. Turn the pieces over and bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for about 40-45 minutes until internal temperature of chicken is 165 degrees. NOTE: if you don’t have an oven-safe pan it’s okay. Just cook chicken skin-side down in a regular pan, then transfer to a baking dish and bake in oven.
- While the chicken is cooking, you can make the sauce. Keep in mind the sauce only takes about 12-13 minutes to cook once your ingredients are prepped. So plan your time as to when you start making the sauce.
- Cube the butter first as this should go back into the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it for the sauce. Use the outside of the butter wrapper as a guide to cut at the 5 tablespoon mark. Cut the butter in half lengthwise. Then cut the two halves in half lengthwise again. This will give you four sticks which you can then cut into cubes. Put in a small bowl and put back in refrigerator for now.
- Finely dice the onion and put in ramekin (small dish).
- Finely dice the garlic and add to onion dish. One small clove should equal about 1 teaspoon finely diced.
- Shred fresh parmesan cheese. Yes, you can buy the already-shredded stuff, but whenever possible, I do like to shred my parmesan cheese right before using. Use the leftover cheese block for spaghetti night!
- Get your other sauce ingredients ready: white wine vinegar (you can use regular white vinegar if that’s what you have on hand), capers, Dijon mustard, heavy cream.
- Add white wine vinegar to a small pot with the garlic and onion. Cook on low-to-medium heat. This will heat quickly. Stir ingredients a few times while the heat reduces the liquid by about 3/4. When the liquid is barely coating the bottom of the pot it’s done. This should only take a few minutes to happen. My video shows this well so you have an idea of what it should look like.
- Get your cubed butter from the refrigerator. Add 3-4 butter cubes at a time to the reduced vinegar, garlic and onions. Whisk the butter until melted, then add 3-4 more cubes of butter and whisk those until melted. Keep doing this until all the butter is melted. Do not add all the butter at once or it won’t emulsify. You should be whisking continually throughout the process. Once all the butter is melted this should be a slightly thickened mixture.
- Slowly whisk the heavy cream into the butter, vinegar, onion, garlic and whisk until incorporated.
- Whisk in the Dijon mustard.
- This part is optional: If you want to strain out the garlic and onion for a smooth sauce now is the time to do this. Again, my video shows this well. Pour the sauce through your finest strainer over a bowl and press gently on the garlic and onions to squeeze all the sauce out. This is home cooking and a lumpy sauce doesn’t matter, but if you want to impress guests, strain out the onion and garlic.
- Transfer the sauce back to the small pot on low-to-medium heat. Add the capers, plus a little splash of the caper brine and whisk together.
- Add the parmesan cheese and press gently into sauce. Mostly you want to let the cheese sit and melt. Then give it a stir, and when it’s fully melted give it a taste and see if you need to make any adjustments. I loved it the way it was and felt it didn’t need any salt (don’t forget there was salt in the butter, capers and Dijon). If you want more salt or more Dijon flavor that is up to you. I felt the sauce had the perfect thickness, but if you want it a little thicker add a bit more cheese. The sauce yield is a little more than one cup total. J
- Once your chicken is cooked, let it rest a few minutes on the counter.
- While it’s resting you can chop the fresh dill for garnish. You can skip this part of course, but adding that fresh pop of herbs to this dish really pushes it over the edge in my opinion. The dill brings another level of flavor here and makes for a great presentation too.
- For serving, I put the chicken on a serving plate. DO NOT spoon the sauce over the chicken until right before you are serving or your crispy chicken thighs will not be crispy.
- I spooned a little sauce over each chicken thigh and a little more to fill the gaps on the plate. There was still sauce leftover which you can serve on the side. The sauce is crazy delicious and you will likely use it all.
- Garnish the platter with the chopped dill and long dill sprigs too. I also scattered more capers over the top – but that’s up to you. Serve immediately. Good sides for this: salad and veggies.
