In the mood for chicken and gravy? This delicious garlic chicken fits the bill perfectly and is a garlic lover’s dream. You’ll want to bust out the mashed potatoes to soak up every bit of this fabulous gravy!
This rustic chicken recipe features a fabulous garlic gravy, that’s tailor-made for spooning over mashed potatoes. Just a vegetable for a delicious chicken dinner!
What you’ll need
Garlic – If you’re like me, the thought of separating and peeling the 20 cloves of garlic for this recipe isn’t super appealing. I picked up a bag of pre-peeled cloves at the grocery store for about $1. Money well spent, if you ask me :) And again, don’t worry that you won’t be able to leave the house for days after eating this. Like roasted garlic, this garlic becomes very mellow. You’ll know it’s there, but it won’t knock you (or anyone else) over.
Chicken – As for the chicken, any cut will work here. I used skin-on/bone-in thighs and I left the skin-on for a more moist chicken. Boneless/skinless chicken thighs will also work here, as will chicken breasts, though the breasts will need longer in the oven to cook through. Be sure to check and test the chicken. It should be cooked to 165F internal temperature in the oven.
White Wine – the recipe specifies some wine to de-glaze the pan after it comes out of the oven. Any wine will do. If you don’t have wine on hand or you prefer not to use it, simply skip it and use 3/4 cup more chicken broth instead. If you skip the wine, you may like to add a little acidity to the gravy that the wine usually brings, maybe add a splash of fresh lemon juice or white wine vinegar to the gravy. Just a teaspoon or so. It makes all the difference!
Other ingredients you will need – chicken broth, thyme (fresh or dried), flour, cooking oil, salt, pepper and butter.
Step-by-step photos
- Heat a bit of oil in a skillet, then place the chicken thighs into the skillet skin side down.
- After the skin is browned, flip and cook a few more minutes.
- Remove the chicken thighs to a clean plate.
- Add the garlic cloves to the skillet and cook, stirring, until golden.
- Add the flour to the skillet and cook with the garlic cloves briefly.
- Return the chicken to the skillet, cover the skillet and place into a 400F oven for about 15 minutes.
- Remove the skillet from the oven.
- Remove the chicken to a clean plate.
- Start the gravy by heating the juice and garlic over medium-high heat on the stovetop.
- Deglaze the hot pan with the wine and cook for one minute, scraping up the browned bits, then add the chicken broth.
- Season the gravy with thyme, salt and pepper.
- Return the chicken to the pan and simmer with the gravy until re-warmed.
Recipe video
Recipe tips!
- Take your time browning the chicken and garlic to get some nice colour, for the best flavour and presentation.
- Don’t forget to taste your gravy at the end of cooking and add additional salt and freshly ground pepper, as needed, to really bring all the great flavours together.
- You can eat the cooked garlic or not, as you like :) If you don’t want to eat it, you can mash some of it and add it to mashed potatoes for garlic mashed potatoes.
What to serve with garlic chicken
You’ll want to serve this with something on the side to make the most of the delicious garlic gravy. My choice is usually a creamy mashed potato, but pasta or rice would also be nice. At the risk of carb overload, I’d even throw a great crusty bread into the mix, to dip in the gravy. Add a salad or veg for a complete meal. I also love green beans or broccoli with this dish.
Making ahead, storing and freezing
You can make this chicken ahead, cover and refrigerate, then re-heat it later to serve. Simply reheat in a skillet on the stovetop over medium heat until the chicken is warmed through.
Store leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
This chicken with gravy will also freeze well for up to 3 months.
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Get the Recipe: Rustic Garlic Chicken with Gravy
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon cooking oil, for the pan
- 6 pieces skin-on/bone-in chicken thighs, or any skin-on chicken, such as breasts or drumsticks, about 2 lbs.
- Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
- 20 cloves garlic, separated and peeled (2 full heads) or start with pre-peeled garlic cloves
- 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup dry white wine, any kind, or alternately replace by using more chicken broth instead
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 1/4 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, or about 3/4 tsp. dried thyme leaves
- 1 Tablespoon butter
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F. (not fan-assisted)
- Heat the oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Dry the chicken pieces well by patting them with a paper towel. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper. Add the chicken thighs to the hot skillet, skin side down and cook until well browned underneath. Flip the chicken over and cook on the other side for a couple of minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate. *Chicken thighs can be fatty! If you have a lot of fat in the pan, you can remove and discard some of it, but do leave a bit in the pan to cook the garlic in the next step.
- Reduce the heat under the skillet to medium. Add the garlic cloves and cook, stirring regularly, until the garlic is golden, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the garlic and stir until combined. Return the chicken to the pan, COVER, and bake for about 15-20 minutes in the pre-heated 400°F oven (*If your pan or skillet doesn't have a lid, you can tightly cover the top with tin foil instead.) Be sure to cook until the chicken is cooked to 165F internal temperature. *Bone-in chicken breasts will take longer.
- Remove the pan from the oven and put it on a burner. *Be careful not to touch the panhandle! It's hot! Remove the chicken pieces from the pan to a clean plate. Heat the skillet over medium-high heat, whisk in the wine and simmer for 1 minute to cook off the alcohol. Whisk in the broth, thyme and a bit more salt and pepper, then reduce heat and simmer, stirring regularly, until the gravy thickens. Turn the heat off and stir in the butter. Taste the sauce and add more salt and pepper, as needed. Add the chicken back to the pot to re-warm with the sauce. Serve spooned over mashed potatoes, rice or pasta.
Notes
- Take your time browning the chicken and garlic to get some nice browning, for the best flavour and presentation.
- If you’d like to make this with boneless chicken thighs or boneless chicken breasts, simply adjust the oven time accordingly, cooking the chicken until it is cooked through and reaches 165F internal temperature.
- You can eat the cooked garlic or not, as you like :) If you don’t want to eat it, you can mash some of it and add it to mashed potatoes for garlic mashed potatoes.
- If you’d like a thicker gravy, you can use a Beurre Manié, which is a fancy name for butter combined with flour, which is used as a thickener at the end of cooking. So instead of just adding 1 Tablespoon of butter at the end, you can rub 1 Tablespoon of flour into the butter instead, then add it a bit at a time to the pan, until the desired thickening is achieved. The additional flour will thicken the gravy more, without worry of lumps.
More Bone-in Chicken Thigh Recipes to Love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
Oh my sweet garlic goodness … this is my favorite meal I’ve tried in the first 54 days of 2015! Thank you for sharing this rustic, flavorful recipe. My trusted cast iron skillet was the choice for this recipe and I didn’t hesitate with 25 cloves of garlic ~ their flavor close was a caramel like richness and combined with the sauce over Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes took the entire meal over the mark! I do believe chicken thighs with trimmed skin work best to keep the moisture in the meal. Because I live at 7800 feet in Colorado, I adjusted my cooking times based on altitude.Next time I may try a very light dusting of flour on the chicken before browning. Kudos and thanks!
So glad you enjoyed it, Leann. Reading your comment made me hungry for it again :)
This looks really good but my boyfriend is allergic to sulfites and can’t have wine. Do you think the dish would work without it?
Hi Sandy, Sure. Just omit the wine and increase the amount of chicken stock a bit.
Wow, this was delicious!! I am doing the Whole 30, so I changed flour to arrowroot flour and wine to additional chicken stock, I also might have added more garlic, can’t ever have enough of that. So glad I made a bunch, can’t wait for lunch tomorrow. A friend made this recipe with meatballs, said that was amazing too.
Glad you enjoyed it, Michelle. And meatballs! Would have never thought of that, but now I’m going to have to try that, too ;)
Hi! I had a problem with the recipe, maybe you could give a tip what I did wrong. The only thing I changed was using chicken legs instead of thighs, and kept them even 20 min in the oven, but at the end they were not even half ready (blood still oozing when cut), I had to stew’em for additional hour till the meat softened and stopped to blood. Could the reason be in using legs? (sorry for my English)
Hi Marina, I have to admit, I rarely cook chicken legs, so I’m not sure of the cook time as compared to thighs, but my guess is they require longer cooking (especially considering your experience). I’m assuming you browned them on the stove-top first? I usually cook my thighs quite a while on the stove top to get them good and browned, which of course, lessens the time needed in the oven. That said, my best advice is to cut in to the chicken near the bone before removing from the oven. If it’s not cooked through, leave it in the oven longer until juices run clear. Hope that helps :)
Yes, I browned them first! I feared the meat would become too dry if I leave it for a longer time in the oven than 20 min, but at the end an hour of stewing didn’t give it a chance to be tender anyway )) I guess you are right, I’ll try oven next time, maybe the meat will lose less juice than stewed. And I’ll surely chose thighs, something’s definitely wrong with the legs for this kind of dish, maybe they are too big… or the chicken was stiff from the very beginning… anyway thanks for answering and the advice!! :) I must say what definitely came out right was the sauce, it’s gorgeous. It was kinda revelation for me that so much garlic can produce a mild and tasty sauce. Thanks for the recipe.
I was just wondering about the garlic. Do the cloves just go in the pan whole? or did you crush them before roasting them? Also 20-22 cloves seems like a lot ! Is the garlic flavour over powering in the dish?
Hi Liz, The garlic should just go in whole. As they are cooked over higher heat, if they are cut or crushed, they will likely scorch. And yes, I know it seems like a lot of garlic, but the garlic essentially roasts here, so if you’ve ever eaten roasted garlic, you know that it is a much milder (sweet, almost) version of raw garlic. The finished dish will not be over-powered by the garlic.
Hello,
I really want to try your recipe. I have only grilled chicken thighs, never baked them.
I guess I was wondering about the baking time. Seems like 15min isn’t much time.
I imagine the browning process on the stove has aided in the cook time?
Thanks,
Arlene
Hi Arlene, Yes, the browning on the stove-top partially cooks them. That said, if you want to be sure they’re cooked through, you can’t hurt them leaving them 20-25 minutes in the oven.
I made this, it was delicious! Thanks for the recipe!
So glad Maddie and thanks so much for coming back to let me know :)
I made this for dinner lastnight. I used chicken breasts because that’s what I had on hand. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! It was awesome. Everyone, even my picky eater asked to have it again.
So glad, LaTanya. Always a score when it’s picky-eater approved :)
Hi, Jennifer! I am Jennifer, too! I found your amazing blog from Pinterest. Guess what? Expect me to stalk you! LOL! Loving all your posts! I just made a pork loin myself (with Cognac sauce). Just looking for more inspiration…Nice to meet you. I’m from Toronto :)
Hi Jennifer! So nice to meet you, too and I’ll be mutually stalking your beautiful blog, too. Waving from Muskoka (where Toronto spends the summer ;)
I had to make a last minute meal (MIL was coming over) so I had to use boneless chicken breasts (all I had). I didn’t have much left in the pan after browning the chicken, so I added the flour and half the white wine. I was a little worried I would ruin it, but it came out amazing! Thank you for saving the day!
So glad you enjoyed it Coralyn! Yes, with boneless/skinless chicken you don’t really get all the juices and renderings from the skin, but glad the gravy turned out well without it. Good to know :)
The flavor is insane!! I could easily take a spoon to the gravy and eat it straight from the pan…
Glad you enjoyed it CJ and I agree!
Can’t wait to make this recipe! Any way this would work using a crock pot?
Hi Janelle, I don’t think a crock pot would be great for this dish. I think you’d end up with a mash of meat and bones.
has anyone tried with chicken breasts with bone and skin on? thanks
I have pearse. It works just the same (just check chicken for doneness, as some breasts are huge!)
Looks fabulous! Could you cook this entirely on the stovetop? I don’t have anything that would transfer from stovetop to oven.
Hi Kim, It’s really hard to cook chicken thighs all the way through on the stovetop. I think you’d be better off transferring the chicken to an oven-proof dish and still doing the oven part, then transfer it back to the frying pan after. I know it’s not one-pan then, but you’ll be sure your chicken is cooked.
Tried this tonight for the first time for 2 reasons, one because the pictures and ingredients looked scrumptious and two because I wanted a reason to finally use my dutch oven for the first time. I have to say it turned out phenomenal! My family loved it!! I had only a small package of boneless skinless chicken thighs on hand so I added drumsticks with skin which gave me more chicken then the recipe called for so I doubled the ingredients and followed the steps to the letter. It looked and tasted every bit as savory as your pictures. With that said I can’t wait to use my dutch oven again! Thank you so much this ones definitely a keeper!!
BTW, I never eat cooked garlic, that is till tonight :o)
So glad, Maggie and I think you’ll learn to love your Dutch oven!