Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs is what you make when you need an unplanned, quick and easy recipe for boneless skinless chicken thighs. It’s incredibly simple, made with pantry staples and uses a highly effective method for cooking chicken thighs in the oven.
The sweet-savoury glaze tastes like your favourite country-style rub, and the sauce is so good for drizzling over everything on your plate. Also – see how to use this as a marinade for Sticky GRILLED Chicken!
Boneless skinless chicken thighs in the oven!
We all love chicken thighs that have been cooked so they’re beautifully caramelised on the surface – like with everybody’s favourite pan seared Garlic Chicken Thighs.
But we all have those days when we don’t want to deal with the spitting and splutter of chicken thighs in the pan.
And we all also have those days when we haven’t planned for a particular recipe for that pack of chicken thighs in the fridge.
Enter – Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs.
Boneless skinless chicken thighs cooked in the oven that practically look like they’ve been seared on the stove made with ingredients I bet you already have!
The country-style glaze: pantry staples!
Made with basic pantry staples with plenty of substitutions possible, this country-style sauce is adapted from these Baked Pork Chops. It’s savoury and a bit sweet, with great layers of flavour. Here’s what we’re using:
Worcestershire sauce – packs a ton of savouriness, plus you can give yourself a pat on the back for using it for something other than Bloody Mary’s 😂;
Soy sauce – the “better than salt” way of adding salt to anything (more flavour);
Ketchup – OR Aussie tomato sauce, BBQ sauce or other similar type sauces;
Brown sugar – or honey or even maple syrup. Corn syrup, golden syrup or other such sweet things in liquid form should work just fine too;
Garlic – because it makes everything better;
Vinegar – because where we have sweet, we must balance with tang. Use apple cider vinegar if you have it, otherwise any other clear(ish) vinegar; and
Oil – just makes the sauce a bit more interesting. You can skip it if you want.
Cooking boneless skinless chicken thighs in the oven
These baked chicken thighs are a mix, drizzle and bake job.
The key here is baking on a high heat to get nice caramelisation – I bake the thighs at 220C/425F.
For the best result, bake it for just over half the time, then finish with a broil/grill. This caramelises the surface really well, and this is my preferred method for baking chicken thighs.
What temperature should boneless chicken thighs be cooked to?
Boneless chicken thighs are cooked when the internal temperature is 75C/165F. However, because thighs are far more juicy than breast, they are more forgiving so don’t fret about exact cooking times.
Can this be made with chicken breast?
Yes, but the caramelisation isn’t as good. Directions in recipe notes!
Plenty of sauce for drizzling!
The other nice thing about this recipe is that there’s plenty of a lovely syrupy sauce to spoon over the chicken and everything else on your plate.
The sauce is the reason why I like to bake AND broil/grill chicken thighs. While you get better caramelisation by just broiling, you don’t get pan juices.
And for this quick meal, I want sauce because then it minimises the effort I have to go to for the sides! Mop all the sauce up with some crusty bread, or for something a little different, try this speedy Garlic Mashed White Beans (pictured below). ~ Nagi x
More quick Chicken Thigh recipes
These are all boneless chicken thigh recipes that don’t require any marinating time.
Garlic Chicken Thighs – crispy surface, fabulous garlic flavour
Chicken Stroganoff – everything you love about Beef Stroganoff, but with chicken!
Bacon Wrapped Chicken – Bacon. Chicken. You know it’s a winner!
One Pot Chinese Chicken and “Fried Rice” – it’s fried rice and Chinese chicken, all made in one pot
Honey Garlic Chicken – the 5 ingredient sauce is outrageously good!
Oven Baked Chicken Breast – dry rubbed then baked, this recipe works 100% perfectly with thigh as well
Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs
Watch how to make it
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Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs
Ingredients
- 700g / 1.4lb chicken thighs , skinless boneless (5-7 pieces), Note 1
Glaze (Note 2 for subs):
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 3 tbsp brown sugar , lightly packed
- 1.5 tbsp soy sauce , all purpose or light (NOT dark)
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 2 clove garlics , minced
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 220°C/420°F (200°C fan).
- Pan – Use a pan large enough to fit the thighs lying flat (not bunched up/folded). Line pan with foil (you'll thank me later), place thighs in pan.
- Glaze 1 – Mix Glaze ingredients together. Spoon over about 2/3 of the Glaze on the surface of each (not underside), reserve rest.
- Bake 15 minutes, remove pan.
- Flick to grill/broiler on high, adjust shelf to be 20cm/8" from heat source.
- Glaze 2 – Spoon pan juices over chicken. Then spoon/dab remaining Glaze onto chicken.
- Broil chicken for 8 to 10 minutes until surface is nicely caramelised.
- Rest – Remove and stand for a few minutes (uncovered) before serving with pan juices.
Recipe Notes:
- Cut each breast horizontally to form 2 steaks;
- Oven: Spoon ALL the sauce over one side. Bake for 18 minutes at 425F/220C, do not remove for basting, do not broil.
- Broil: Spoon bit of sauce on one side. Broil on high 3 minutes. Flip, spoon over remaining sauce. Broil 6-8 min, watch carefully to ensure it doesn’t burn too much.
- Ketchup – Aussie tomato sauce, BBQ sauce or other similar sauces
- Brown Sugar – white sugar, or 2 tbsp honey, maple syrup, or any other sweet thing in similar liquid form
- Soy Sauce – light or all purpose soy sauce, don’t use dark it will be too intense. Fish sauce would also work but reduce to 1 tbsp.
- Apple Cider Vinegar – sub with any clear(ish) plain vinegars eg plain white vinegar, white wine vinegar, rice vinegar, champagne vinegar etc.
- Worcestershire sauce – add 1/4 tsp black pepper then add an extra dash of all the other ingredients. A sprinkle of onion and/or garlic powder on the chicken before coating in sauce would also help.
- Add ins – dash if your favourite hot sauce wouldn’t go astray! Pinch of herbs (mixed, oregano, thyme), cayenne pepper for heat, sprinkle of paprika for warmth, cumin or coriander for South-West edge.
- Foil – Sauce will caramelise on edges and adhere firmly to pan. Takes intense scrubbing to remove, so use foil. DO NOT use parchment paper (will catch fire under grill).
- No point putting glaze on underside, it doesn’t stay on. Underside gets flavoured because it ends up cooked in the sauce. Also want upper side exposed to heat the whole time for best caramelisation.
- Pictured in post with speedy Garlic White Bean Mash
Nutrition Information:
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Wow, so good!! We used coconut aminos instead of soy sauce (currently soy free over here). Also added 1tsp each of onion powder, garlic powder (instead of minced), and black pepper. AMAZING! Will be adding to our rotation!
A favorite in my family! It’s seriously just so good. Perfect with rice. Would be great with potatoes too. The sauce is so good. My 4 kids and husband all put it away. Thanks!
Super easy and super tasty! Now part of my regular rotation of meals. Goes great with rice or potatoes too.
Thanks for sharing!
This recipe is such. A go to now in our house!! Could I use tenderloins instead?
This turned out perfect! It’s the best chicken I have made and I had bone in with skin thighs. I didn’t have the Worcester shire so I used the pepper and smoked paprika. Thanks for including substitutions. I’ll try your other recipes, thanks for sharing.
I make this almost every week, my family loves it, served with mashed sweet potato or rice.
I just had a thought: can I freeze these with the marinade? Then thaw a few pieces according to need and bake?
TIA
Excellent, easy and quick dish! I doubled the sauce but I didn’t quite have double the meat so it was drowning in sauce. Didn’t matter bc it was so delicious! Thanks Nagi for another wonderful recipe!
Love this recipe. So easy my 10 year old son makes it. Super delicious with rice & stir fry veggies, with salad or even a wrap if we have left overs (started doubling the recipe because it just goes, everyone loves it). Thanks so much for all your recipes it certainly has changed the game with coming up with interesting and different meals for my family. Also having allot less take out because we can do it ourselves for allot less. 😊❤️🙏
My 13 year old looooved this. He’s suddenly become a picky eater (only wants junk food), and he is currently wolfing down seconds. Excellent way to get a stubborn junk food lover to get some protein!
I cooked this today and it was delicious. I did add more coconut aminos(gf) and vinegar to make a bit more tangy and then added Trader Joe’s sriracha seasoning to give a kick. Easy peasy and would make again
Your discussion piece exactly read my mind. I too had chicken thighs in the fridge and couldnt think what to cook. This recipe was so super easy to pull together and tastes awesome. Plus nothing was left over after the meal as everyone loved it and have asked to have it again. Ty Nagi, and to u too Dozer – Im sure you helped too 🙂
I made this tonight. It was amazing. The sauce was so good that I put it all over the potato too.
Loved it. So easy to make.
Made the sticky chicken tonight for my family’s dinner. it was a huge hit thank you. It was super easy.
This recipe was a hit with my family! Will definitely make again
This recipe is DELICIOUS! It’s a new favourite for my family!!
Had chicken thighs in the fridge and wanted something different, quick and easy. This had amazing reviews so I decided to try it. So glad I did. It was awesomely good! The only thing I changed was to lightly salt and pepper the thighs and add a few dollops of garlicky hot sauce to the dreamy sauce recipe. Yum!
I’ve made this 3x now so it’s time to add to my recipe book lol. My 11 & 13 yr olds devour this chicken so it’s become our new go-to, thank you!
I have not made this yet, nut I think I am tonight. Giving 5 stars because I LOVE the sub options. I don’t see that in most recipes and it really is needed, Plenty of times have left out to get the ingredient needed and just ate out instead, or took out /changed an ingredient and it changed the dish to much. So thanks for that section.
Used 2 big thighs (w/bones) and it turned out good. Although, I would suggest to cook it longer if the thigh is quite large. I paired this with your mushroom rice recipe, Nagi. So yummy! I added buttered corn on the side 🙂 Perfect! Thanks for the recipes!