Easy Thai Chicken

Easy Thai Chicken is simple in preparation but bold in flavor. A simple Thai-inspired marinade, paired with a creamy peanut sauce, makes this chicken recipe one you’ll want to prepare many times.

Chicken with Peanut Sauce

Chicken can often be a boring weeknight meal, but with this delicious Thai-inspired marinade and creamy peanut sauce, it’s anything but bland. The marinade alone elevates this chicken to a new level but adding the dipping sauce makes it out of this world.

The combo of the marinade, which has flavorful ingredients such as coconut milk, red curry paste, and peanut butter, paired with the peanut sauce is a bit of a double standard. Both the marinade and the sauce have similar ingredients, which I think creates double the flavor.

This is also a bonus if you don’t have a ton of time to marinate your chicken. I suggest 30 minutes but also understand that’s not always possible on weeknights. If this is the case you can easily prepare the chicken as suggested in this recipe and then just top it off with the sauce.

Of course, this works both ways as well. If you have time for the marinade but would rather not make the peanut sauce you can leave it off as well and will still have tons of flavor in your chicken.

Simple and versatile chicken recipes like this one are how I’m currently filling our menu. For similar meals try this Baked Balsamic Chicken, Easy Lemon Garlic Chicken, or this Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce.

What You’ll Need

As I mentioned above many of the ingredients in the marinade are also in the sauce. So for example you’ll somewhat need double the coconut milk, brown sugar, peanut butter, red curry paste, fish sauce, and soy sauce. Whew!

Below is a full list of the ingredients called for in this recipe. Just check the recipe card at the bottom to make sure you have enough of each.

• Canned Coconut Milk
• Creamy Peanut Butter
• Brown Sugar
• Red Curry Paste
• Fish Sauce
• Soy Sauce
• Chicken Thighs
• Oil
• Garlic Cloves
• Lime Juice

How Long to Marinate the Chicken

Bon Appetit likens marinating meat to stretching. It’s important, but too much of a good thing, even stretching and marinating, is just simply too much. In short, marinating meat for less than a day is just right.

Marinades mostly consist of flavor enhancers with the basics being sugar, salt, and acid. The salt and sugar break down the muscle fibers to an extent but the acid is the key tenderizing ingredient.

When sitting in a marinade consisting of lemon or lime juice, yogurt, or vinegar for too long the texture of the meat turns mushy and stringy

So what exactly is the point of marinating? So the marinade cooks first when the meat is placed in the pan or on the grill. It then creates an outer crust big on flavor.

How to Cook Chicken Thighs Perfectly

Perfectly cooked chicken thighs come down to a science of timing. A little marinade is important, but when cooking time is of the essence, quite literally as is an iron skillet. (No, I haven’t used an iron skillet in the pictures. In truth, the skillet pictured is not the one I cooked the meat in).

• Prepare the marinade and let the chicken soak in it for a minimum of 30 minutes and up to 8 hours.
• Set the oven to 475 degrees ℉. In an iron skillet heat oil, one with a high smoking point such as grape-seed oil, at high heat. Swirl to coat the pan. Place the chicken top-down or skin-side down (if the skin isn’t removed) and cook for 2 minutes.

• Reduce heat to medium-high and continue to cook for 12 minutes.
• Move the skillet to the oven and cook for 13 minutes (exactly!!). Then flip and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Let sit 5 minutes before serving or adding any additional sauce.

• Mix the peanut sauce together and drizzle on top of the cooked chicken.

Tools You’ll Need for Making

These are just a few items I’ve used in preparing this recipe that make it even easier.

• Mixing Bowls
• A whisk.
• A baking dish for marinating the chicken or a resealable plastic bag.
• An iron skillet for cooking.
• Tongs to help flip the chicken.