Chicken thighs and sheet pan cooking

Chicken and vegetables
ready to go in the oven.

Chicken thighs are not popular at my house, partly because I insist on fixing bone-in, skin-on chicken and partly because Jordan says one is not enough for the male members of the family. My solution to that is to cook two for each of them—and then we usually have two left over.

Sheet-pan cooking is not popular either, mostly because we haven’t given it a chance, despite the current popularity. A friend of mine who makes clear she is not a cook said she discovered the easiest dinner—chunked up kielbasa, cut-up potatoes, and I think cabbage. I forget what kind of sauce or dressing she used, but her point was that it’s so simple. I did post a few weeks ago about the salmon sheet pan dinner we did, which was well received, especially by Jordan and me because it had spinach and artichoke hearts. It also had cherry tomatoes—another experiment we won’t try again. They turned to mush. I may try cod next.

Chicken thighs and sheet-pan cooking came together for me when I discovered a recipe in Facebook’s Not the New York Times Cooking Community (It used to be a NYT page but they pulled out of it).

This calls for two “handfuls” of vegetables per person—I ended up with so many we had to do the potatoes separately. But I chunked up carrots, green beans, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, and sweet onion. The green beans and sweet onion did not fare well—the high temperature got to them. Next time I’ll do potatoes. Sweet potatoes would be good if your family eats them—mine doesn’t—and cauliflower, but I admit I’m not crazy about that. The neat thing about this assortment of vegetables is that you can include a favorite for most at your table—if they don’t like it, they don’t eat it.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with heavy duty foil (do not use a glass pan with this high heat). Toss the vegetables with salt, pepper, and olive oil. You can add other spices if you wish—rosemary, curry, thyme, even taco seasoning. Spread the vegetables in the pan but be sure not to crowd them together. A little space between.

Peel the skin back from the thighs to season the meat with salt and pepper. (If you are squeamish about raw poultry just go ahead and season the skin, but under the skin it gives more flavor to the meat). Fold the skin back in place and pat the chicken dry with paper towels—this step is essential for crispy skin. Put the chicken skin side up directly on top of the vegetables so that the chicken juices soak down and flavor the vegetables during cooking.

The recipe called for a 500^o degree oven for 50 minutes. My toaster oven reaches its limit at 450^o and even that was too hot for the onion and green beans. I’m going to try a lower temperature next time. The trick, of course, is to be sure the chicken is thoroughly cooked. Chicken breasts will work, but they aren’t as good, and you have to cook them longer.

I took a picture of the pan ready to go in the oven but of course forgot the picture the finished product. But everyone loved it, particularly the chicken with its crisp skin.