Savoury, sweet and sticky heat come together in this meal-prep friendly, minimal effort recipe for oven roasted chicken thighs.

Time: 3/5
Telescope your tasks by prepping the vegetables as the chicken roasts.

Effort: 3/5
Minimal dishes, if you marinade the chicken in the bag it comes from.

Hot Damn!

Here’s a mnemonic to help you make a foolproof marinade for any protein:

Lots of savoury, some of sweet;
Bit of acid, maybe heat.

Please no bully, I’m quite proud of how I made it rhyme. It’s a template that I’ve been following for years, without being aware of what I was doing in a conscious, explicit way. Like how miso paste and honey goes great with both salmon and chicken. Or how a bit of vinegar improves a Gyudon by a lot. Or how sugar, garam masala and yogurt works wonders in chicken tikka masala.

This time round, the star ingredient is gochujang. You’ve seen me use it in a wing sauce for some Korean fried chicken, and while fried chicken is a great dinner it isn’t the most meal-prep friendly cooking method. I’m happy to tell you that the same fermented-umami-spicy flavour profile translates readily to oven-roasted chicken thighs.

The addition of honey is not just for flavour. It thickens the marinade, letting it cling on to the chicken and form a sweet-sticky glaze. The sugars also help the chicken develop some char, which is otherwise hard to get without a grill. And of course, well-browned skin is always pleasing to the eye.

I don’t have much else to say besides how this recipe strikes a happy balance between being low effort to make, visually stunning, tasty when freshly cooked, as well as keeping and reheating well for the entire week. One of the better meal prep home runs I’ve done in a while.

I sincerely hope you give this recipe a try. Mani deuseyo~

Dramatis Personae

Served 7.

Boneless, skin on chicken thighs – 1kg

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Boneless thighs cook faster, and yield more meat per unit area of sheet pan than bone-in. I’ve tried it both ways, and I’m not going back to bone-in without a good reason. Well-browned chicken skin is also an indispensable part of the chicken-eating experience, so that’s pretty non-negotiable for me too.

Gochujang – 1 tablespoon

Gochujang is pretty salty, so be careful how much you use. Remember, you can always add more, but you can never take it away. It’s not very spicy on its own, if you want to turn up the heat you could add something like powdered cayenne pepper.

Honey – 2 tablespoons

I really should roast things in honey-based glazes more often! I love how the honey turns the marinade thick, sticky and gooey. You can probably substitute with the same amount of brown sugar, but the results wouldn’t be the same.

Soy sauce and rice wine vinegar – 2 teaspoons each

For salinity as well as flavour. Some liquid also helps loosen up the gochujang up, so it will coat the chicken.

Salt and pepper – to taste

Pepper is technically optional, but I ended up adding it out of habit. The salt is there to bring up the salinity without having to rely exclusively on the gochujang and the soy sauce, which would throw off the balance in terms of the spice level / moisture content, respectively.

Vegetables – 1500g

Always eat your veggies! I had a mix of zucchini and carrots, because they were what’s on sale. Both are quite easy to wash and prep, and the carrots bring some nice colour as well as vitamins and fiber.

These got stir fried in a sauce of soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce and a bit of sugar. So, more or less a replica of the Pad Kee Mao sauce I’ve been experimenting with. Plus the jarlic that I’ve been commanded to get rid of with whatever means necessary.

Executive summary

1. On the day before cooking, marinade the chicken thighs.
2. Begin cooking by making rice. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.
3. Line a baking sheet with foil and parchment paper.
4. Place chicken in one layer, skin side up. Roast for 30 minutes.
5. In the meantime, wash and cut the vegetables. Stir fry until done to liking, then toss in sauce until combined.
6. Assemble and serve.

Play by Play

This gochujang … has seen better days. It’s been dehydrating in my fridge for an entire year (!) past its expiry date. But I’m not giving up on it yet, let’s see if I can revive it.

Here it is after being whisked into some hot water. Looks good enough, let’s move on to the chicken.

Last things first. Marinating the chicken right in the bag it comes in saves on dishes. Nice additions at this point would be sesame oil, or ginger and garlic paste. But I’m going with the basics for my first try.

The next day. The rice takes the longest, so I set my rice cooker up first. Then I move on to setting up the chicken in the oven.

That leaves my hands free to wash and cut the vegetables. Nothing fancy here, keeping things rustic. Zucchini and carrots are both pretty easy to work with, especially with a recently sharpened knife.

Give the carrots a head start, then add the zucchini and the jarlic. Go in with the sauce ingredients when the vegetables are almost done to your liking, then stir to combine.

Assemble and serve, with a sprinkle of sesame seeds for garnish.

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