Chili-Spiced Chicken Thighs and Potatoes

 December 2025

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, September 2023

I leaned of this sheet-pan recipe from Cook's Illustrated magazine. While the idea of a sheet-pan dinner seems like a culinary fad to me this particular combination was appealing. We like roasted potatoes and we like chicken thighs so it seemed a good combination to try and an interesting use of a sheet pan. I found a "for two" recipe online and used it to prepare four chicken thighs rather than the six or more in the original recipe. As usual it provided two meals for the two of us.

The primary change I made to the recipe was using yellow potatoes rather than Yukon Gold potatoes due to supermarket availability. I also skipped the scallion and lime garnishes. A spice rub was made with kosher salt, chili powder, paprika, black pepper, granulated garlic (subbing for garlic powder), and cayenne pepper. Yellow potatoes were peeled and cut into one-inch pieces. Four bone-in chicken thighs were trimmed of excess fat and skin, three slits were made on the flesh side of each thigh, the skin was pierced with a paring knife, and the spice mixture was rubbed over both sides of the chicken pieces. The trim was placed on a quarter sheet pan and roasted to render the fat; the trim was discarded leaving the fat on the pan. While the trim cooked the potatoes were parboiled in water seasoned with baking soda. The potatoes were drained and dried over low heat then the rendered fat and salt were added and stirred coating the potatoes with a starchy paste. (This helps the potatoes to brown.) The potatoes were transferred to the baking sheet and baked in a 450° oven until browned on the bottom. They were flipped and room was made on the baking sheet for the chicken thighs. The pan was returned to the oven to roast the potatoes and chicken. Total time was 110 minutes.

The potatoes and chicken were pretty good, though some of the potatoes were black rather than golden brown. The potatoes were nice and crispy and did not take on a strong chicken flavor from cooking in the schmaltz. The spice rub was a little too spicy for our tastes and we wondered if a gentler spice mixture could be used, perhaps garlic powder and salt or salt, parsley, sage, and thyme? Cooking the chicken and potatoes together was convenient and the leftovers were reheated in a 350° oven.