Ina Garten’s New Chicken Recipe Is One of the Best Things I’ve Made All Year (2024)

• Recipes
• What To Make With
• Chicken

published Oct 29, 2020

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After a summer full of salads and grilling out, the cold weather has shifted my cravings and taken me back into the kitchen this fall. I’m looking for hearty comfort foods that slow-cook or, better yet, need the oven so that my chilly house gets a boost of warmth. This recipe from Ina Garten’s latest cookbook, Modern Comfort Food, seemed to check all those boxes: sliced potatoes and buttermilk-marinated chicken thighs get slow-roasted together in a skillet before being showered in fresh herbs at the end.

Any time a main and side dish get to cook together in one pan gets a serious thumbs-up from me: fewer things to monitor and dishes to wash. A few months ago, I served Ina’s crunchy roasted potato recipe from the same book to my family with rave reviews, so I knew I had to add this skillet dinner to my next meal plan.

How to Make Ina Garten’s Skillet Roasted Chicken and Potatoes

Marinating the chicken in buttermilk is the first step in this recipe. It calls for four large bone-in chicken thighs that weigh 2 1/2 to 3 pounds total. This size is absolutely enormous, verging on chicken breast territory! My grocery store didn’t have anything close to that size, so I went by weight instead and picked up seven medium thighs. They didn’t all fit in a single layer in my 12-inch cast iron skillet and I ended up cooking one thigh separately, so I recommend buying what will fit comfortably in your skillet without crowding so that the potatoes get a chance to brown.

I marinated the chicken in buttermilk seasoned only with salt and pepper. I missed the part in the directions that called for marinating four to 12 hours and ended up marinating overnight, but it turned out just fine.

The next day, I placed the chicken in a cold, oiled skillet. Although I let a lot of the excess buttermilk drip off the thighs, they still had a good thick coating when they went in the pan. Next came a brushing of Dijon mustard and white wine. It was a bit unclear whether you were supposed to use up the entire mixture—I ended up brushing on about half of it, which seemed like a decent amount. The single tablespoon of wine needed was a bit of an annoyance, though — I’m curious if it can be omitted completely if you don’t have any around or don’t want to crack open a bottle.

Finally, I sprinkled the chicken with a mixture of fresh thyme, paprika, more salt, and more pepper. It’s a tiny amount of paprika that seemed to contribute more color than flavor to the finished dish. The chicken went into a moderately hot oven (350ºF) for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, the chicken was a pale golden-brown and you didn’t really see white buttermilk anymore. I took the thighs out of the pan, then tossed sliced Yukon gold potatoes, minced garlic, and salt and pepper in the drippings in the pan. I placed the chicken back on top of the potatoes and slid the skillet into the oven for another 30 minutes.

After an hour of roasting, the chicken was a gorgeous burnished golden-brown and fully cooked (although mine wasn’t as dark as the picture on Ina’s website). I transferred the thighs to a plate and tented them with foil to keep them warm. I tossed the potatoes in the pan juices, kicked up the oven to 425ºF, and roasted them by themselves for another 15 minutes. When they were ready, you were supposed to put the chicken back on top and sprinkle on more salt and three tablespoons of a combination of chopped parsley and chives before serving. Three tablespoons seemed like a lot to me, so I ended up sprinkling about half onto the potatoes, placing the chicken on top, and then sprinkling the chicken with the rest of the herbs.

My Honest Review? These Are the Most Flavorful Potatoes I’ve Ever Eaten

Of course the queen of comfort food delivers again. Brava, Ina! This was a really great dinner that hit all my comfort food cravings: the chicken was well-seasoned, moist, and really flavorful. But the star of the show? The humble slices of potatoes underneath. As everything cooked together, the buttermilk separated and the potatoes absorbed some of it and the juices coming out of the chicken.

The potatoes were just slightly tangy in a mouthwatering way, but full of savory chicken flavor, perfectly seasoned and with a hint of garlic. They were honestly some of the best potatoes I’ve ever eaten and reminded me of French fondant potatoes, which are thick slabs of potatoes slow-cooked in broth until savory and browned. Served with a simple green salad, my family was quite happy with their dinner that night. I loved the potatoes so much that I nabbed the last slice and left us with no leftovers, and I would make this recipe again just for the potatoes alone.

My potatoes didn’t brown as much as the ones in Ina’s photo, but that is probably due to the fact that I had more pieces of chicken in the skillet that kept some of the steam from escaping. But they were so flavorful that I didn’t even care that they weren’t crisp around the edges.

If You’re Making Ina’s Skillet Roasted Chicken and Potatoes, a Few Tips

Your turn:Have you tried making Ina Garten’s Skillet Roasted Chicken and Potatoes at home? Let us know in the comments!

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