Roasted Chicken Thighs with Caper Pan Sauce

Juicy, bone-in chicken thighs with ultra-crispy skin get baked to perfection and get served with a shallot and caper pan sauce brightened up with a glug of red wine vinegar.

Now, you may be thinking, “Do I really need another chicken thigh recipe?” and the answer is a resounding YES you absolutely do. Because while we’re not really doing anything particularly exciting to the actual chicken, we’re doing a lot with the schmaltzy bits in the bottom of the pan - and that’s what this recipe is really about.

After the chicken is fully baked (and the skin gets crisp AF), those babies come out so we can tend to the fat and any crispy chicken pieces left behind. We cook some shallots, garlic, capers, and lemon zest in the fat, then deglaze it with red wine vinegar and chicken stock.

It’s basically a thin chicken gravy on major flavor steroids, and the vinegar and capers cut through the fat to balance the sauce into something so absolutely glorious you’ll want to drink it with a spoon.

When I served this at the spring bloom dinner party, every single guest said the pan sauce was the biggest surprise of the night, and they couldn’t believe how much flavor was packed into such a small amount of sauce.

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Roasted Chicken Thighs with Caper Pan Sauce

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes
Serves 8

Ingredients

• 8 bone-in, skin on chicken thighs

• Salt & pepper

• 1-2 tablespoons EVOO

• 1 large shallot, thinly sliced

• 4 cloves garlic, minced

• 2-3 tablespoons capers

• Zest of 1 lemon