Honey Asian Chicken Thighs

Have you seen the price of chicken breast lately? Seriously, it's pushing $3 per pound (unless you can find it on sale, at which point the stores are usually sold out anyway). Cooking chicken in the quantities that I do, that's just ridiculous. The other day I found one of those super sized packs of chicken thighs for about half the price of chicken breast. Usually I don't buy thighs because the fat is so much higher than it is in breasts, but I'm on a budget here.

That being said, though, you just don't get the same flavor and texture from a breast that you do from a thigh. I'm the first one fighting for the dark meat at Thanksgiving. I trimmed a lot of the fat from the thighs before I cooked them, which made me feel a little better about serving them to my family.

The original recipe used drum sticks. I imagine that would be pretty good, but I struggle cooking bone-in chicken. I don't know why. I just can't ever seem to make it come out right. I was out of chicken breast and still had some thighs in the freezer. I think next time I might toss in a little crushed red pepper. I served these with roasted red potatoes for dinner last night, but of course those were gonezo by the time my guys got done with them, so for lunch I served it over some cooked brown rice and zucchini noodles. Totally yum! I've made this recipe with breasts before and it's delicious, so use whichever you prefer.

Note: Often times Bragg's Liquid Aminos and soy sauce are interchangeable. If you use soy sauce, feel free to substitute it, but you'll probably want to use a little less. To me, soy sauce is saltier and has a stronger flavor. Proceed with caution. :)

By the way, you'll notice that I use a lot of salt when I cook. That's because I don't use many processed foods, and that's really where you have to worry about sodium. If you're cooking natural foods, there is absolutely nothing wrong with adding salt, especially if you're using a quality sea salt.

Ingredients:
8 boneless chicken thighs, trimmed of visible fat
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup Bragg's Liquid Aminos (or sub soy sauce)
1/4 tsp onion powder
2 T. dried onion flakes
2 T. ketchup
1 T. olive oil
1/4 to 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 13x9 inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together honey, Liquid Aminos, onion powder, onion flakes, ketchup and oil. If desired, mix in red pepper flakes (but I haven't tested this yet, so I can't tell you if it's yummy or not). Let stand for a few minutes to allow the onion flakes to absorb some of the moisture.

Arrange chicken thighs in a single layer in the baking dish. Pour slightly less than half the sauce over the chicken, smooth it around, and flip chicken pieces. Pour remaining sauce over the top and spread out evenly.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, turn chicken, and cook an additional 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Let stand for a few minutes before serving. Serve with additional sauce, if desired.

I usually check chicken doneness by cutting a slit at the thickest part of the thickest breast to make sure it isn't pink. I don't trust that method with thighs, because they're already darker in color. For thighs, I use a meat thermometer. Because thighs aren't very thick, you need to insert it into the meat almost horizontally. Make sure it hits 160 degrees, and do it in the thickest part of the chicken.