What is the best way to cook bone-in, skin on chicken thighs without an oven?
Drumstick also attached. My apartment doesn't have an oven (I'm a graduate student in a new city) and I'd like to make some pan-seared chicken thighs but every recipe I find says to finish them in the oven. Who knows how they can be cooked just on the stove? Should I remove the bones and detach the drumsticks? Thanks for your suggestions
Recommended by Food52
2 Comments
Good morning! That is a great question with so many possibilities. You absolutely can cook chicken thighs (with or without legs attached) on the stovetop in a pan. Dark meat is well suited for the higher heat you get on the stovetop and is way more forgiving than breast meat. (Think of fried chicken or wings, very high heat for shorter periods of time and very tasty.)
For simply cooking the chicken by itself, I would suggest you look over Ella's article "How to Cook Chicken Thighs from baking to frying to slow roasting" https://food52.com/blog/25597-how-to-cook-chicken-thighs where she covers a bunch of different methods including Skillet only at the bottom. (I might add to those recipes that when you are done cooking, deglaze the pan with some chicken stock or white wine to get the tasty bits up and make a great pan sauce.)
If you are considering making more of a meal out if it, you might want to consider some of the recipes that involve braising the meat after it has been browned. Maybe something like Merrill's recipe that involves braising the meet in tomatoes and garlic: https://food52.com/recipes/20892-braised-chicken-thighs-with-tomato-and-garlic
Or you could investigate recipes that involve cooking the chicken along with rice after it has been browned. My wife and I made Sohla's recipe for chicken and rice over the weekend and I have been enjoying the leftovers for lunch ever since: https://food52.com/recipes/84132-garam-masala-chicken-thighs-saffron-rice-recipe
You have tons of options depending on the direction you want to take this, but all of them are totally doable on the stovetop. Good luck and congrats on grad school!
-Jeremy