Crispy Chicken Thighs
Skin side down in a cold pan, weighted, and left alone for most of the cook. You turn them once, near the end.
- Prep
- 10m
- Cook
- 25m
- Waiting
- 5m
- Total
- 40m
- Serves
- 4
- Effort
- Easy
Scale
Units
Method
| 8 | 1 Dry hard and season 8m Bone dry. Any surface water has to boil off before the skin can crisp. | 2 Cook skin-down from a cold pan, weighted, 18 minutes 20m Cold pan, medium heat. Rushing this renders less fat and gives you leathery skin. | 4 Flip and finish, 3 minutes, then rest 8m The second side needs almost nothing — it is already cooked through. | |
| 2 tsp | ||||
| 1 tsp | ||||
| 4 cloves | 3 Warm through in the rendered fat 3m | |||
| a few sprigs | ||||
| 1/2 | ||||
- 1
Dry hard and season
8m- bone-in chicken thighs 8
- fine salt 2 tsp
- black pepper 1 tsp
Bone dry. Any surface water has to boil off before the skin can crisp.
- 2
Cook skin-down from a cold pan, weighted, 18 minutes
20m- from 1 Dry hard and season
Cold pan, medium heat. Rushing this renders less fat and gives you leathery skin.
- 3
Warm through in the rendered fat
3m- garlic 4 cloves
- thyme (optional) a few sprigs
- 4
Flip and finish, 3 minutes, then rest
8m- from 2 Cook skin-down from a cold pan, weighted, 18 minutes
- from 3 Warm through in the rendered fat
- lemon 1/2
The second side needs almost nothing — it is already cooked through.
Start cold
Chicken skin is mostly fat and water held in a collagen matrix. Dropped into a hot pan, the outside seizes and traps the fat inside. Starting cold lets the fat render out slowly as the pan warms, so by the time the skin is browning it is thin and dry. This is the same reason bacon starts cold.
Notes
- Weight it. A second pan on top keeps the skin in full contact with the metal, which is the difference between mostly crisp and completely crisp.
- Resist turning it early. Eighteen minutes on the skin is not a typo.
- Pour off some rendered fat halfway if it starts to shallow-fry. Keep it — it is the best fat in the kitchen for potatoes.