I Tried 7 Methods for Cooking Chicken Thighs and Finally Found the Clear Winner I’ll Do for Life
Table of Contents
Chicken thighs are perhaps the most versatile cut of chicken you can cook. Whether roasted on a baking sheet, glazed in a skillet, or baked in a flavorful sauce, you’re practically guaranteed a delicious meal. Dark meat, coupled with the presence of a bone and skin, helps keep the meat more moist and juicy than a cut of boneless white meat (I’m looking at you, chicken breast). That extra moisture also means it’s a more forgiving (read: easier) cut to cook, because it’s less likely to dry out.
All of that said, what’s the best way to cook chicken thighs if you want the juiciest meat and the crispiest skin? Should you grill it? Braise it? Throw it under the broiler? In an effort to answer that question I tested seven methods to see which one yielded the most tender meat and the most shatteringly crisp skin.
If you’re looking for crispy skin and juicy meat, I found that there are two methods that deliver and both use an oven-safe skillet. Searing the skin on the stovetop (you can choose between whether to preheat the pan or not) and finishing the chicken in the oven ensures golden-brown skin and flavorful, tender meat.
A Few Notes on Methodology
The chicken. I used 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs per method for this testing, to account for any differences in heat distribution and size. I purchased all of the chicken from the same store and all of the thighs I used for testing were between 8 and 10 ounces. Before cooking the chicken, I trimmed away excess skin and fat. All of the chicken thighs were cooked until they registered 165°F on an instant-read thermometer.
The seasoning. To keep the playing field even, all of the chicken was seasoned with 1/2 teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper after being patted dry with paper towels. I added olive oil only to methods that specified the need for extra fat.
The ratings. I rated each method on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the gold standard — well-browned chicken thighs with crispy skin and moist, juicy meat.
Chicken Thigh Cooking Method #1: Bake
Rating: 5/10
About this method: For this method, I patted 4 chicken thighs dry with paper towels and then seasoned them with salt and pepper. I placed the chicken thighs skin-side up in an 8-inch by 8-inch ceramic baking dish and baked them at 425°F until they were browned and registered 165°F on an instant-read thermometer.
Results: The thighs in this test had some decent browning, but unfortunately it wasn’t even among all four thighs. The skin itself was well-cooked, but retained a bit of a rubbery quality from the overall amount of moisture in the dish. The thighs rendered quite a bit of juices and fat during their 25 minutes in the oven, resulting in very juicy and flavorful meat. Overall this method seems better suited to boneless, skinless thighs, where juicy meat is the only goal and you don’t have to be concerned with getting the skin crispy.
Chicken Thigh Cooking Method #2: Air-Fry
Rating: 6/10
About this method: For this test, I placed 4 chicken thighs that had been patted dry and seasoned with salt and pepper skin-side up in the basket of a 6-quart air fryer. I cooked them at 400°F for 12 minutes, flipped them over, and then cooked them for an additional 12 minutes.
Results: An air fryer is basically a tiny convection oven that circulates hot air around food to cook it. The basket of an air fryer is designed so that food sits slightly above the bottom, elevated on a platform that is perforated to maximize airflow. As expected, the air fryer produced chicken thighs with even golden browning on both sides and extremely crispy skin.
Unfortunately, while this setup yielded some of the crispiest skin in my testing, it also resulted in the driest meat. The chicken cooked on a rack that kept it above the rendered juices and fat, which dripped to the bottom of the basket instead of adding moisture and flavor to the meat (as it did in the baking dish test). The air fryer gets points for ease and speed (the chicken was done in about 20 minutes with no preheating of an oven or grill), but ultimately loses them for delivering the driest chicken in my testing.
Chicken Thigh Cooking Method #3: Braise
Rating: 6/10
About this method: After patting the chicken dry and seasoning it, I heated 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a Dutch oven and placed the chicken in the pot, skin-side down. I cooked them over medium-high heat until the skin was browned and crispy, about 7 minutes. Next I turned off the heat, flipped the chicken, and added 1 cup of low-sodium chicken broth to the pot. I then covered the pot with a lid and transferred it to a 350°F oven until cooked through, about 15 minutes.
Results: Similar to the baking dish method, this chicken turned out incredibly juicy and moist, having cooked in a bath of broth bolstered by its own juices. It was tender and flavorful. However, it also shared the same downfall: a lack of crispy skin. To be fair, it started crispy from the initial browning stage, but once I added liquid and covered the pot, it steamed into golden-brown rubber. Ultimately, this gets high marks for juicy, tender chicken, but low ones for crispy skin (it got a little bump because while the skin was rubbery, it had better browning than the baking dish version because it started out seared).
Chicken Thigh Cooking Method #4: Roast
Rating: 7/10
About this method: For this test, I placed four patted dry and seasoned chicken thighs directly on a rimmed baking sheet — no foil or parchment paper, skin-side up — and roasted them at 425°F until cooked through, which took about 25 minutes.
Results: This chicken got pretty close to what I was looking for. The skin was crispy and the meat was juicy, but both elements were just shy of perfection. A rimmed baking sheet has low sides, so moisture wasn’t trapped around the chicken, allowing the skin to crisp up. While good and crispy, the skin did not have great browning and looked a little pale and sad. I placed the sheet tray on the middle rack of the oven; perhaps if I had moved it up, or brushed it with a bit of oil, the skin would have gotten a better color.
The size of the sheet tray allowed for the juices to evaporate and brown on the hot pan, instead of lingering for the chicken to cook in, but the chicken was still in contact with those juices while cooking. Meanwhile, the underside of the chicken also got some good browning due to contact with the baking sheet. As a result, the meat was more moist than the chicken from the air fryer, but less moist than the chicken cooked in a baking dish or braised. This was a very good blend of all the things I was looking for: moist chicken with crispy skin, and it didn’t take forever to cook. It loses points for ease, though, because you do have to wait for the oven to heat up, and cleaning a baking sheet you’ve cooked chicken thighs on is a whole thing.
Chicken Thigh Cooking Method #5: Grill
Rating: 8/10
About this method: I took myself outdoors for this test and cooked the chicken thighs on my charcoal grill. I set the grill up for two-zone cooking and started the thighs (which had been patted dry and seasoned) skin-side down over direct heat, cooking until the skin was browned and crispy, about 6 minutes. I then flipped the chicken over and transferred it to the other side of the grill to finish cooking, covered) over indirect heat, which took about 15 additional minutes.
Results: It’s hard to argue with chicken cooked on a charcoal grill. The meat was juicy and flavorful, with an added boost of smokiness from cooking over an open flame. This is another cooking method where the chicken is elevated, meaning it isn’t cooking in its juices at all. Here, it didn’t dry out like it did in the air fryer, so the chicken was pleasantly moist and plenty juicy. The skin was deeply browned with signature grill marks and nicely crisped, although not 100% dry. Covering the grill may have led to trapping some moisture, which affected the crispness of the skin a bit, but it was still what I would call “crispy” and certainly delicious.
This method ultimately got a boost in points from the extra flavor that came from open-flame cooking, but fell below the winners due to the slightly less crisp skin and the overall effort involved in setting up and then breaking down a grill.
Chicken Thigh Cooking Method #6: Skillet (Preheated)
Rating: 9/10
About this method: This method is a classic of chicken thigh cookery. To begin, I preheated a 10-inch cast iron skillet with 1 tablespoon of olive oil until shimmering over medium-high heat. I then added the (patted dry and seasoned) chicken thighs to the skillet, skin-side down and cooked them, undisturbed, until the skin was golden and crisped, about 8 minutes. I then transferred the skillet to a 425°F oven for 10 minutes, before flipping them over and then continuing to bake until they registered 165°F on an instant-read thermometer, which took an additional 5 minutes.
Results: This method yielded some of the best browning of any of my testing, getting some deep golden-brown hues. The skin was quite crispy from its extended contact with the pan — having only been flipped during the last 5 minutes of cooking. The meat was juicy (exactly the same as the baking sheet test, but with much better browning, which I think gives it a very slight edge). The only real downside here, and why I ultimately couldn’t give this method a perfect score, is that it employs two cooking techniques — one of which involves preheating the oven.
Chicken Thigh Cooking Method #7: Skillet (Not Preheated)
Rating: 9/10
About this method: This test was almost identical to the one involving a preheated skillet, with the difference being that the chicken thighs go straight into a room-temperature skillet (I used the same cast iron one that I did for the preheated skillet test) skin-side down with no oil in the pan. Next I cooked the chicken over medium heat until the skin was golden-brown and easily released from the pan, which took about 18 minutes. I then flipped the chicken over and transferred the skillet to a 400°F oven until cooked through, which took another 10 minutes.
Results: This chicken was almost identical to the preheated skillet method in both browning and crispness of the skin as well as juiciness of the meat. I couldn’t really say one worked better than the other — it just depends on whether or not you want to preheat a pan. The preheated pan method included oil, which did lead to a bit more spatter, but even that difference was negligible. And because there also isn’t a big difference in terms of time or workflow (you have to preheat the oven for both), they got the same high, but not perfect rating.
Overall Key Takeaways
For stellar chicken thighs, strike a balance. The method that yielded the most shatteringly crisp skin sacrificed juicy meat. The methods with the juiciest meat had rubbery skin. If your goal is a chicken thigh that has both, opt for a method that balances moisture and heat, like the skillet method (preheated and not heated), grilled, or roasted in the oven.
For crisp skin, try searing. The methods with crispy, well-browned skin that also had moist meat took advantage of exposing the chicken skin to prolonged contact with high heat, which both drives off moisture and gets the skin nice and brown.
This article originally published on The Kitchn. See it there: I Tried 7 Methods for Cooking Chicken Thighs and Finally Found the Clear Winner I’ll Do for Life
Further Reading
These 15 Kids’ Storage Beds Have Hidden Depths
I Bought a Helix Mattress for My Kid, and Here’s My Review
This $16 Find Is One of the Best Purchases I've Ever Made at IKEA
