Quick Chicken Thigh Dinner

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With the Mechanic’s schedule back to normal, I am once again having dinners for one. (ehh, I guess dinner for two these days) Because of this, when I’m making my shopping list and checking the sales, I’m thinking about what I can make multiple nights in a row, or what I can make extra of at dinner and add to lunch the next day. This week my local store had boneless skinless chicken thighs and corn on sale – perfect!

A lot of people are scared of chicken thighs. They either think they’re super fatty, gamey, or just weird. While they do have more fat than chicken breast, when you get them skinless (and do a bit of strategic trimming) there is a lot less fat than one may expect, AND the extra fat in them keeps this cut of chicken super moist. And as a life long white meat gal, I can assure you that they don’t taste super gamey or weird. Pinky promise. So with this in mind, when I went to the store on Sunday, I picked up a pack of boneless skinless chicken thighs with excitement. My pack was 2 pounds, but since this recipe isn’t exact, you can definitely increase/decrease that amount. Chicken thighs, both cooked and frozen, also freeze very well!

The best part about chicken thighs, or most cuts of chicken really, is that they take in a marinade quickly and easily. You can let these sit in the marinade for as little as an hour and they’ll soak up the amazing flavor. (though as with most marinades, the longer this sits, the better!) For this marinade, you’ll need the following:

2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar 2 Tbsp. soy sauce 4 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar 1 Tbsp. honey 4 cloves of garlic (crushed and roughly chopped) Put this all in a Ziploc bag, and microwave it for about 20-30 seconds to melt the honey and warm the marinade. Trim and larger fat chunks off the thighs.  Cover in wax paper, and pound them out thin and even. This step isn’t necessary, and doing so is up to you, but they will take the marinade and cook faster the thinner they are.

Throw the thighs into the bag, zip it up, smoosh it a bit to mix, and throw into your fridge to marinate. When you’re ready, get your grill/grill pan/non-stick skillet/whatever you want nice and hot, then throw the thighs onto the grill pan. (or whatever you used) Cook for 3-4 minutes per side and you’re all good!

While these were cooking, I made some fresh sides to go with the thighs. As I said earlier, corn was on sale this week, so I went with that. Tip: for quick, amazing corn, wet a paper towel and wrap it around your husked corn. Microwave for five minutes and you’re done! I love to get some extra color on my corn, so I usually throw it under the broiler for a bit, but today I rolled it around on the hot grill pan after I took the chicken off. This also got a bit of the rendered fat and marinade on it. For my other side, I simply cut on cucumbers and grape tomatoes then tossed them in rice wine vinegar, salt, and pepper.

And dinner is ready! This quick and easy dinner is something everyone can enjoy – even Molly!

Have I ever told you how much Molly loves corn cobs? When she was a kitten, she would drag them off our plates!

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What’s your favorite quick dinner?

Do your animals like anything super random?