Maple and Shallot Chicken Thighs

It’s so easy to fall into a rut when it comes to dinner. Lately I’ve found myself making the same handful of meals over and over, and this week I realized I needed to try something new. Since school is out for summer now, I have a little more time to experiment in the kitchen. Today I want to share with you my latest attempt!

I’ve used pureed onions in my marinades and sauces before. I like them for their robust flavour, especially if I don’t have as much time as I would like to marinade the meat before cooking. This time though, I decided to use shallots for their sweeter, more delicate flavour, and I think it was a delicious choice. (If you don’t have shallots, try using half a sweet onion.) I added a bunch of my other favourite flavours like garlic, ginger, and sesame oil, plus some maple syrup because I’m Canadian, eh.

This marinade uses fish sauce too. If you’ve never cooked with fish sauce before, don’t be put off by the smell from the bottle. Yes, it’s fishy (well, what were you expecting?), but a little bit adds amazing umami, or savoury flavour, to any dish. I prefer Red Boat fish sauce because it’s made with only two ingredients: anchovy and sea salt. There’s no sugar or MSG or any other preservatives added which makes it ideal for paleo or Whole30 recipes. If you don’t have fish sauce you can leave it out, but I think it’s better with.

Marinate for at least an hour, longer if you can.

This recipe makes enough marinade for 8 to 10 bone-in chicken thighs. But as I’ve mentioned before, I always make an extra big batch of chicken so we have leftovers for lunch the next day. I doubled the amounts in the recipe you see below to make enough for 20 pieces of chicken instead. There’s not much else to say really. Put everything in a blender, puree, and pour it over the chicken to marinate.

It only took me about 10 minutes to throw this together, which meant we had plenty of time to head to the park! The kids played, I read my book, and we had a fun and relaxing afternoon. We even hit up the ice cream truck because on days like this, dessert before dinner is totally fine.

Once we got home I removed the extra marinade (I like my chicken skin crispy, not soggy) and baked the chicken for 45-50 minutes.

The result was pretty damn good if I say so myself! The whole family raved about it and made me promise to make it again. Both kids went back for seconds (seriously a miracle these days), and they asked me to name this recipe, “Tee and Kay’s Favourite Chicken.” I decided to go with something a little more descriptive for you guys, but I’m pretty sure that’s the name it’ll go by in our house from now on.

All in all, I was feeling pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about the success of this chicken thigh recipe. Here’s the details so you can make your own “favourite chicken”!

Maple and Shallot Chicken Thghs (AKA Tee and Kay’s Favourite Chicken)

Maple and Shallot Chicken Thighs

Sweet and savoury chicken thighs.

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Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 45 mins

Servings 4

Ingredients

  

• 1 large shallot or 2 small, roughly chopped
• 4 tbsp maple syrup
• 2 tbsp avocado oil or EVOO
• 2 tbsp tamari gluten-free soy sauce or coconut aminos
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 6 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 8 bone in chicken thighs

Instructions

 

• Add all ingredients except the chicken to blender and blend on high until smooth.
• Pour maple and shallot marinade over chicken thighs and allow to marinate for at least an hour, up to 8 hours.
• Remove excess marinade and place chicken in a large baking dish.
• Bake at 425 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until the inside temperature reaches 165 degrees.

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