The juiciest and most flavorful baked bbq chicken thighs recipe!
I am so over this winter already! How about you? We haven't had much snow at all, but everyone seems to be making a big deal out of the snow storms this year! Sometimes they call for 4-5 inches and we get just a dusting, sometimes hardly that.
Did I mention the schools close, too. What a joke this winter has been - let's bring on the warmer weather and the bbq flavors. How has winter been where you are at? I would love to hear.
The grilling season cannot get here fast enough. Lately I have been thinking about bringing our grill out of the shed and just grill delicious food. I may get a few glances from the neighbors, but it would be so worth it. What do you think?
If you are like me and cannot wait, these baked bbq chicken thighs are delicious. Even though they aren't grilled, you wouldn't notice a huge difference in flavor, especially if you own a cast iron grill pan. Those types of pans always adds so much flavor so the food you are cooking.
Before I make any meat in the oven, I always sear both sides in order to keep the juices inside. Juicy bbq chicken = amazing. You can either sear the chicken thighs in a skillet or in a grill pan. You will just need to salt and pepper each side and add olive oil to the pan. With searing, you will want to make sure your pan and oil is hot.
After each side has been seared, you can bake in the oven for 30 minutes and add a nice layer, or two or three, of the doctored up bbq sauce.
You read that right - doctored up! I do not think I could post a recipe for bbq sauce and chicken thighs. 😉 The doctored up bbq sauce finger-licking good. It has much more flavor than the ordinary bbq sauce. This is my all-time favorite bbq sauce ever!
- 6 chicken thighs
- salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons oil I used olive oil
- BBQ Sauce
- ¾ cup of your favorite bbq sauce I used Sweet Baby Rays
- 1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce
- 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sriracha hot sauce
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Using a large skillet or a grill pan, add the olive oil and allow the pan to get hot over medium-heat. Add salt and pepper to each side of the chicken thighs, once the pan has gotten hot, place the chicken thighs and sear on each side for 2 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
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Prepare your bbq sauce by whisk all of the ingredients into a medium-sized bowl, refrigerator until the chicken thighs have finished cooking.
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Once the oven has finished preheating, place the skillet or the grill pan (only place oven-approved pans in the oven) and bake for 25 minutes.
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Using a basting brush, add a nice layer of the bbq sauce on top of the chicken thighs. Bake for an additional 5 minutes.
Store the leftovers in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Other recipes you might enjoy:
Mouthwatering Maple-Mustard Chicken Thighs
THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT A DOUBT, INCREDIBLE!! And I'm not even a BBQ eat-with-my-fingers type person! Thank you for this recipe!!! We loved it!
So glad you enjoyed it, Laura! It's one of our favorites.
these are wonderful
So glad you enjoyed them, Vicky!
This recipe is absolutely the best I've ever tasted! Just Wish I made more because they disappeared very quickly, next time I will surely double everything. The chicken melts in your mouth and the flavors are just perfect. Thank you for posting! Will enjoy this for years to come
So glad you enjoyed it, Nicole! It's one of our favorites!
Chelsea, I'm looking forward to trying this recipe. I just have one question. When you say "sweet chili sauce", are you referring to the kind that you would get in a bottle, like am Asian chili sauce, or the kind that some of us can with vegetables throughout the summer? I have both, and I'm thinking it would be the Asian kind, but want to be sure.
Great question, Lori! It's the sweet chili sauce in the Asian aisle of the supermarkets.
I’m making this dish tonight and I couldn’t believe I had sweet chili sauce already in my lazy Susie. Lmbo.
That's fantastic, Yolanda!
I'm going to try this with my girlfriend. Hope she likes it!
These look amazing! Do you ever grill this recipe in the summer, and if so, could you provide instructions? Thanks! Terre
I haven't tried grilling these, Terre. Once I have tried, I will be glad to give you the instructions. 🙂
Is it okay to make this without a cast iron skillet? I'm newly married and would love to make this but we don't have the money to buy a skillet right now. Thanks!
Any pan will work, Katie!
I just made this. In a time crunch and rain derailed our grilling plans. Didn't have time to marinate (like the last recipe I used), and this was just as delicious if not more! Didn't even Doctor the sweet baby rays! Thank you for this!
I used bone - in chicken breasts and cooked for about 45 minutes to make sure the centers were done. Also, I had to use two iron skillets due to the size of the breasts. They were great!
I had Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce in the fridge which measured to exactly 3/4 cup. I had to use before having to throw away. I had everything else except the sriracha sauce. Went ahead and mixed all ingredients together, but used Tabasco sauce, which gave it a nice kick. I just know this is going to turn out delicious. Thanks.
We love this recipe, it’s a go-to, easy, delicious meal that we make often! We normally use Stubb’s barbecue sauce, Cholula for the hot sauce, and we’ve used bone-in and bone out chicken thighs (both have turned out well) and this recipe works great!
Trying this tonight! There’s no specification to bone-in that I could find nor alternative bake times for bone out so I’ll be winging this one! Also preheating the oven, then making the bbq sauce then searing the chicken would be a proper sequence, in my opinion, because now I have everything ready and seared but I’m waiting on the oven to heat up 😬 cheers!
We love the sauce. I make it for the chicken my husband smokes on his Traeger; so good.