Recipe Alert: Chicken Thighs with Mushrooms and Shallots
Chicken and mushrooms naturally love each other, especially with a creamy sauce. This recipe is quick and easy, and uses just a little bit of cream to pull everything together. Most of the flavor comes from the chicken and mushrooms themselves, with help from shallots and tarragon.
Pro tip: tarragon loves both chicken and mushrooms. You want to add a special note to your chicken dish? Add tarragon. Want a mushroom soup recipe that will have your friends begging for the recipe? Add tarragon. Just don’t add too much. A little is all you’ll need.
In this recipe we are browning the chicken thighs skin side down first, then finishing their cooking in the oven. Chicken thighs release a lot of fat, even if you’ve trimmed the excess at the start. Cooking the thighs this way allows you to monitor the amount of fat you want in the finished dish.
While the chicken pieces are cooking in the oven, we get rid of most of the rendered fat in the pan, and cook the mushrooms and shallots in the remaining pan drippings. We add some stock, some white wine, let it boil down a bit, and swirl in some cream. When the chicken is done, so is the sauce. Easy!
Chicken Thighs with Mushrooms and Shallots Recipe
Be prepared for a little bit of splattering from browning the chicken. To avoid this you can dredge the chicken pieces first in a little flour. I wanted a gluten-free chicken dish so am not taking that step.
You can make this dish with skin-on chicken breasts, they will take less time to cook in the oven than thighs.
Even if you don’t eat the skin, please cook the chicken with the skin on in this recipe. The skin protects the chicken from drying out.
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 3 pounds skin-on, bone-in thicken thighs, trimmed of excess fat
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 pound cremini or button mushrooms (plus a couple sliced shiitake mushrooms if available for extra mushroom flavor)
- 1/2 cup chopped shallots
- 3/4 teaspoon dried tarragon (or 2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon)
- 1/2 cup chicken stock
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Method
1 Preheat oven to 350°F.
2 Brown the chicken on the stovetop: Heat olive oil in a large wide skillet on medium high heat. Pat dry the chicken pieces and lay them skin-side down in the pan to brown. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Cook without moving the chicken (allowing them to brown) until they are golden brown, about 5-6 minutes.
3 Bake the chicken in the oven: Place the chicken pieces skin-side up in a roasting pan. Roast in a 350°F oven for 13 to 15 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the chicken is 165°F.
4 Sauté mushrooms: While the chicken is roasting, thickly slice the mushrooms. Remove all but 1 Tbsp of the fat in the pan (do not put down the drain or you will clog your pipes). Heat the pan on medium high heat and add the mushrooms to the pan. Stir to coat with the fat in the pan.
5 Add shallots and tarragon: Cook for a couple of minutes until the mushrooms begin to brown and release some of their water. When the mushrooms are glossy, add the chopped shallots and tarragon and stir. Cook for another minute.
6 Add stock, wine, then cream: Add the stock and the white wine to the pan and increase the heat to high. Let the liquid reduce by half. Taste and if it needs salt, add 1/4 teaspoon or more of salt. Sprinkle with black pepper.
Stir in the cream. Lower temp to medium. Let simmer for a minute.
7 Serve: To serve, place the mushroom shallot sauce in the bottom of a serving dish. Place the chicken pieces on top. If there are any drippings in the baking pan, pour them over the chicken. Sprinkle with parsley.