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bone-in baked chicken thighs with sticky dark-red barbecue glaze and browned skin edges on a plain plate
Melissa Hart

Oven BBQ Chicken Thighs

Bake the thighs before adding most of the barbecue sauce so their skin has time to render instead of sitting under a wet coating. The sauce is a small homemade batch with ketchup, vinegar and molasses, and it gets brushed on in two thin layers near the end. Keep an eye on the last few minutes: a dark edge tastes good, but black sugar stuck to the chicken doesn't improve with another spoonful of sauce. This is an oven dinner with a sticky finish and no grill to tend.
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Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs about 2 lbs total
  • 1 tsp neutral oil
  • 3/4 tsp fine salt
  • 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1/2 cup ketchup
  • 1 tbsp unsulfured molasses
  • 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp yellow mustard
  • 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tbsp water

Method
 

  1. Heat the oven to 400°F. Pat thighs dry, rub with oil, salt, paprika and pepper and place skin-side up on a rack over a rimmed baking sheet.
  2. Bake for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, combine ketchup, molasses, vinegar, mustard, Worcestershire, garlic powder and water in a small saucepan.
  3. Simmer the sauce gently for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring, until lightly thickened. Transfer half to a clean bowl for serving and use the rest only for brushing during cooking.
  4. Brush chicken lightly with cooking sauce and bake for 10 minutes. Brush once more and bake for 5 to 10 minutes until sticky, with the thickest meat at 175 to 185°F; discard any cooking sauce left on the brush or in its bowl.
  5. Rest uncovered for 5 minutes and serve with the reserved clean sauce spooned over the meat.