Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs is what you make when you need an unplanned, quick and easy recipe for boneless skinless chicken thighs. It’s incredibly simple, made with pantry staples and uses a highly effective method for cooking chicken thighs in the oven.
The sweet-savoury glaze tastes like your favourite country-style rub, and the sauce is so good for drizzling over everything on your plate. Also – see how to use this as a marinade for Sticky GRILLED Chicken!
Boneless skinless chicken thighs in the oven!
We all love chicken thighs that have been cooked so they’re beautifully caramelised on the surface – like with everybody’s favourite pan seared Garlic Chicken Thighs.
But we all have those days when we don’t want to deal with the spitting and splutter of chicken thighs in the pan.
And we all also have those days when we haven’t planned for a particular recipe for that pack of chicken thighs in the fridge.
Enter – Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs.
Boneless skinless chicken thighs cooked in the oven that practically look like they’ve been seared on the stove made with ingredients I bet you already have!
The country-style glaze: pantry staples!
Made with basic pantry staples with plenty of substitutions possible, this country-style sauce is adapted from these Baked Pork Chops. It’s savoury and a bit sweet, with great layers of flavour. Here’s what we’re using:
Worcestershire sauce – packs a ton of savouriness, plus you can give yourself a pat on the back for using it for something other than Bloody Mary’s 😂;
Soy sauce – the “better than salt” way of adding salt to anything (more flavour);
Ketchup – OR Aussie tomato sauce, BBQ sauce or other similar type sauces;
Brown sugar – or honey or even maple syrup. Corn syrup, golden syrup or other such sweet things in liquid form should work just fine too;
Garlic – because it makes everything better;
Vinegar – because where we have sweet, we must balance with tang. Use apple cider vinegar if you have it, otherwise any other clear(ish) vinegar; and
Oil – just makes the sauce a bit more interesting. You can skip it if you want.
Cooking boneless skinless chicken thighs in the oven
These baked chicken thighs are a mix, drizzle and bake job.
The key here is baking on a high heat to get nice caramelisation – I bake the thighs at 220C/425F.
For the best result, bake it for just over half the time, then finish with a broil/grill. This caramelises the surface really well, and this is my preferred method for baking chicken thighs.
What temperature should boneless chicken thighs be cooked to?
Boneless chicken thighs are cooked when the internal temperature is 75C/165F. However, because thighs are far more juicy than breast, they are more forgiving so don’t fret about exact cooking times.
Can this be made with chicken breast?
Yes, but the caramelisation isn’t as good. Directions in recipe notes!
Plenty of sauce for drizzling!
The other nice thing about this recipe is that there’s plenty of a lovely syrupy sauce to spoon over the chicken and everything else on your plate.
The sauce is the reason why I like to bake AND broil/grill chicken thighs. While you get better caramelisation by just broiling, you don’t get pan juices.
And for this quick meal, I want sauce because then it minimises the effort I have to go to for the sides! Mop all the sauce up with some crusty bread, or for something a little different, try this speedy Garlic Mashed White Beans (pictured below). ~ Nagi x
More quick Chicken Thigh recipes
These are all boneless chicken thigh recipes that don’t require any marinating time.
Garlic Chicken Thighs – crispy surface, fabulous garlic flavour
Chicken Stroganoff – everything you love about Beef Stroganoff, but with chicken!
Bacon Wrapped Chicken – Bacon. Chicken. You know it’s a winner!
One Pot Chinese Chicken and “Fried Rice” – it’s fried rice and Chinese chicken, all made in one pot
Honey Garlic Chicken – the 5 ingredient sauce is outrageously good!
Oven Baked Chicken Breast – dry rubbed then baked, this recipe works 100% perfectly with thigh as well
Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs
Watch how to make it
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Sticky Baked Chicken Thighs
Ingredients
- 700g / 1.4lb chicken thighs , skinless boneless (5-7 pieces), Note 1
Glaze (Note 2 for subs):
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 3 tbsp brown sugar , lightly packed
- 1.5 tbsp soy sauce , all purpose or light (NOT dark)
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 2 clove garlics , minced
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 220°C/420°F (200°C fan).
- Pan – Use a pan large enough to fit the thighs lying flat (not bunched up/folded). Line pan with foil (you'll thank me later), place thighs in pan.
- Glaze 1 – Mix Glaze ingredients together. Spoon over about 2/3 of the Glaze on the surface of each (not underside), reserve rest.
- Bake 15 minutes, remove pan.
- Flick to grill/broiler on high, adjust shelf to be 20cm/8" from heat source.
- Glaze 2 – Spoon pan juices over chicken. Then spoon/dab remaining Glaze onto chicken.
- Broil chicken for 8 to 10 minutes until surface is nicely caramelised.
- Rest – Remove and stand for a few minutes (uncovered) before serving with pan juices.
Recipe Notes:
- Cut each breast horizontally to form 2 steaks;
- Oven: Spoon ALL the sauce over one side. Bake for 18 minutes at 425F/220C, do not remove for basting, do not broil.
- Broil: Spoon bit of sauce on one side. Broil on high 3 minutes. Flip, spoon over remaining sauce. Broil 6-8 min, watch carefully to ensure it doesn’t burn too much.
- Ketchup – Aussie tomato sauce, BBQ sauce or other similar sauces
- Brown Sugar – white sugar, or 2 tbsp honey, maple syrup, or any other sweet thing in similar liquid form
- Soy Sauce – light or all purpose soy sauce, don’t use dark it will be too intense. Fish sauce would also work but reduce to 1 tbsp.
- Apple Cider Vinegar – sub with any clear(ish) plain vinegars eg plain white vinegar, white wine vinegar, rice vinegar, champagne vinegar etc.
- Worcestershire sauce – add 1/4 tsp black pepper then add an extra dash of all the other ingredients. A sprinkle of onion and/or garlic powder on the chicken before coating in sauce would also help.
- Add ins – dash if your favourite hot sauce wouldn’t go astray! Pinch of herbs (mixed, oregano, thyme), cayenne pepper for heat, sprinkle of paprika for warmth, cumin or coriander for South-West edge.
- Foil – Sauce will caramelise on edges and adhere firmly to pan. Takes intense scrubbing to remove, so use foil. DO NOT use parchment paper (will catch fire under grill).
- No point putting glaze on underside, it doesn’t stay on. Underside gets flavoured because it ends up cooked in the sauce. Also want upper side exposed to heat the whole time for best caramelisation.
- Pictured in post with speedy Garlic White Bean Mash
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
One of his best features 😂
This was great! I added chilli flakes and some cayenne pepper as suggested by other reviewers. Also turned the grill right up at the end to get that proper caramelisation. Served with mash potato, green beans and carrots. Really yummy
My children love Chick-fil-a sauce with their chicken. Every time I make chicken they need the sauce.
This recipe was the first chicken dish in a LONG time where there was not a single request for the sauce. All three of my sons (ages 6 and under) ate ALL of their chicken as it was. Even my 18 month old ate the whole thigh. My 6 year old declared it the “best chicken ever”.
Thank you for another wonderful recipe!!! We will definitely be saving it to enjoy for years to come!
A winner! All rated this dish – the in-house tradie was very happy to take the leftovers for the following day lunch.
There’s no reason this isnt a 5 star recipe. Only adjustment was the oven started smoking after a few minutes of broiling so went back to baking.
This is my go to quick dinner. The sauce is amazing and it turns out every time! A true family favourite!
My whole family loved now I make it every couple of weeks, I also broiled for 10 mins to sticky the top up
Do you think this will work well on pork chops
Was good would recommending double wing the sauce as I didn’t have enough to quite stretch
I used hot honey with a teaspoon of brown sugar. The added heat was spot on! Thanks for an easy weeknight meal!
This was incredible! I doubled the recipe and as a family of 4 we have 1 though left! Definitely a delicious and easy recipe that we will cook on a regular basis. Thank you!
LOVE this recipe. Go to for a weeknight dinner.
This is the best chicken I have ever had. Me and my daughter are in LOVE with it. I made for the first time about 4 weeks ago and Ive made it at least once a week. It is that good! I try lots of recipes and most are just ok. This is addictively good!
It’s absolutely delicious chicken thighs recipe! Thank you
Made this today using chicken thigh cutlets and cooked as per the notes. Wasn’t very caramelised on top by the end of the 50mins so put them under the grill for 5-10 and they were super delicious! Loved by the whole family and leftovers went on bao buns with the reduced sauce from the pan – yummo!
Can I make this in an air fryer? If so how do I adapt the recipe?
This turned out great!! Very easy to make and very tasty
The sauce for this chicken recipe was delicious. My family loved it. I will use this same marinade the next time I make ribs. I think it will work nicely with ribs as well as chicken.
This photo of Dozer 🥹🥹 melts my heart 💕.
Thank you Nagi. We enjoyed the chicken thighs very much. My husband’s only complaint was I should have cooked more thighs. I used tomato paste and a little kecap manis in place of the tomato sauce and Stevia brown sugar, instead of regular. Very impressed with your recipes. This is my first comment however.
Very delicious meal. Very easy to make