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!
Absolute heaven! My whole family loved it! I live at high altitude so I did add a bit of chicken broth to the chicken in the oven. I also didn’t have enough white wine, so I added a bit of marsala….it was excellent! Thanks for a recipe I will make again and again:)
Thanks Nicole and so glad you enjoyed it:) Good call on the Marsala. I bet it was a nice addition!
Can’t wait to try it. Question, you said to add flour then the chicken back in and bake. So you don’t add any liquid with the flour until after it bakes for 15 minutes? Won’t the flour burn.
Hi Tabby, I understand why you’re asking, but let me assure you, there will be liquid in the pan to mix with the flour! There will be lots of juice from the chicken and a bit of fat from the chicken skin :)
You had me at garlic gravy. I knew I had to try this. It was so delicious! I served it with mashed potatoes and spinach gratin. I am pretty sure that a plate of my dinner tonight would go for $20 at some fancy gastropub. But thankfully, instead I ate it at home for much cheaper – and I didn’t have to mind my manners so I was free to lick my plate clean.
So glad to hear and always a good thing to lick the plate clean :) Thanks!
I made this recipe for dinner tonight. It was amazing. Even my picky teen daughter liked it. This will become one of my go-to dinners. Thanks.
So glad to hear that, Susan! I know how hard it is to feed picky teens (been there :) Thanks!
This recipe looks delish. My oven died on me. Is it possible to do this whole recipe on the stovetop instead of the oven?
Hi Annette, It is! You’d just need to fully cook the chicken in the skillet, so they would spend extra time on the stove-top, until the chicken is cooked through. You would be adding at least as much time on the stove-top as it would have spent in the oven. Enjoy!
Planning to try this recipe tomorrow night at my in laws house and the only oven safe pan they have is a big cast iron skillet. Will that work for this? Im not an expert on cast iron.
Hi Sarah and yes, it will definitely work! The only downside is that skin-on chicken “may” stick to the cast iron when browning. Depends on how well seasoned the pan is really. If you really want to make sure there is no sticking, you could brown the chicken in a non-stick, then transfer to the cast iron for the oven. Not a big deal though if a bit sticks. It will still taste great :)
I was never a big fan of chicken…until I cooked this! I’ve cooked it so many times it has almost become an addiction at my house. The combination of white wine, garlic, thyme, and butter is divine. It cooks beautifully in a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, which goes directly from the stove to oven and back to the stove. It’s sooo easy to cook, you can’t go wrong with this recipe.
Thanks so much, Roxanne! I have a wee addiction to this one, too :) And I love that you are a fellow cast-iron skillet lover. Can’t beat it!
Love these!!! :) Pinning this post! :) Substitute turkey for the chicken, and it looks like a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal! :)
Thanks Christina and nice idea!! :)
OH EM GEE. This is for sure not one of the healthiest dishes I’ve ever made, but it is definitely one of the tastiest. This gravy brought me back to thanksgiving dinner, it was so good. I made it with quinoa and sauteed green beans and grape tomatoes. This is a dish that wraps you in its arms like a warm blanket of comfort.
I didn’t have an oven proof pan, but transferring it to an oven proof baking dish covered in foil worked out fine. I could’ve definitely used one of those oil splatter guards for the chicken, but the clean up was definitely worth the dish.
Thank you for sharing!!
So glad you enjoyed this Lauren and yes, that gravy! And I hear you about the splatter guards. Frying chicken is the only time I put my full apron on in the kitchen ;)
Thank you for such a quick reply! Hopefully all will go well tonight!
Hi! This looks delicious! I’m going too make it this weekend but my family only likes chicken breasts (ugh lol) .. do I need to adjust any cooking times since they are not bone in? Thanks!
Sorry I’m a new cook! lol
Hi Krista and we’ve all been new cooks at some point too :) If you will be cooking the whole boneless breast, the timing in the recipe should be close. I would definitely do the time in the oven so the breast cooks through. If you want to skip the oven bit, you could cut the breast in half lengthwise and just cook it in the frying pan. Because it is so much thinner, it will cook through on the stovetop just fine.
Answered below :) Enjoy!
i made this recipe about a year ago and can’t wait to make it again! I’m wondering what you think if i were to freeze the recipe, possibly before putting it all in the oven? I’m looking at doing more cooking during the weekend so on busy week days I can just thaw and have a good meal ready quick for my family.
Hi Melodie and so glad you enjoyed this! I haven’t actually frozen this dish, but I feel like it would freeze just fine :)
This recipe is fabulous! I used skinless bone-in thighs, followed the recipe exactly, and served over pasta. This will be going into my regular rotation. Thank you so much for sharing it!
Thanks Laurel! So glad you enjoyed it :)
Can you use a cast iron pan for the frying part?
Hi Victoria and yes, you can use a cast iron pan for frying. I have found the non-stick nice, as there’s no worries about the skin sticking with it. Enjoy!
Made this for dinner tonight! Everything was great, but the skin did not brown, I’m thinking I was not patient and the oil was not hot enough? My family loved it, it’s a keeper!
So glad you all enjoyed it Kathryn :) It takes a surprisingly long time to brown up the skin so yes, patience is the thing for sure :)