Balsamic Chicken is a baked chicken dinner that’s incredible quick to prepare: just mix balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, honey, sugar and garlic, pour it over chicken and pop it in the oven. And out comes this glorious chicken that’s savoury, tangy, sweet and very, very sticky!
Quick baked chicken recipes are mid week life savers and this balsamic chicken is a back-pocket gem along with simple Honey Mustard Chicken, Juicy Baked Breasts and country-style Baked Thighs.
Sticky Balsamic Chicken
This is a baked chicken recipe for busy weeknights, lazy Sundays, and every other day in between.
When it’s this effortless to make something so lip smackingly good with ingredients that are basic pantry essentials, frozen meals and home delivery aren’t even a passing thought. No matter how nuts your household is at dinner time, no matter how tired you are, no matter how irritating and incompetent your boss is, how bad the commute home was, how miserable the weather is – you got this.💪🏼
2 minutes to make the sauce (and that includes reaching / taking lid off / measuring).
Pour over chicken and bake.
No marinating required – the glaze is so sticky and has enough flavour that you don’t need to marinate. Though you can if you want. I don’t. Don’t think I ever have. This is a quick-unplanned-on-the-fly type recipe, in my books. 🙂
And this is what comes out of the oven.
This baked chicken recipe is effortless – high returns for very little effort!
This Balsamic Chicken is so sticky. You just want to grab it with your hands and suck your fingers clean. Frankly, I’m all for that. I am a huge fan of eating with hands, I just always wonder where that line is where eating with hands becomes unacceptable!
The sugar and honey in the glaze balances out the tartness of the balsamic
When I wrote out this recipe for this Baked Balsamic Chicken with the intention of posting it, I did hesitate for a moment at the amount of honey and sugar in the balsamic glaze. But it needs it. Not only because it’s what makes the sauce reduce down into a sticky glaze, but also because balsamic vinegar is very tangy and needs a decent amount of sweetness to offset it.
Even my anti-overly-sweet-things mother, who happened to be over when I was shooting this (she does tend to drop by at rather convenient times i.e. when there’s a massive pile of washing up to do), declared that it’s not too sweet because of the tanginess of the balsamic.
She really liked it. She hoovered down a drumstick incredibly fast [for a woman of her age😂] then reached for another before I smacked her hand away. I wasn’t finishing photographing!!!! This stuff is hard to photograph – they have a tendency to look like black blobs of coal!!! – Nagi x
More simple baked bone-in chicken thigh recipes
Honey Mustard Chicken – also this version with Potatoes and crispy bacon!
And more popular chicken recipes
Browse all chicken recipes
BALSAMIC CHICKEN
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
Baked Balsamic Chicken recipe video!
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Baked Balsamic Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 kg / 2 lb chicken thighs (5 pieces, bone in, skin on), or drumsticks or wings (any combination) (Note 1)
Sauce:
- 1/4 cup (65 ml) balsamic vinegar
- 2 1/2 tbsp / 50 ml soy sauce , all purpose or light (not dark soy sauce)
- 1/4 cup (85 g / 65 ml) honey
- 1/4 cup (45g) brown sugar , loosely packed (Note 2)
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (or 1 1/2 tsp garlic paste from jar)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C/350F.
- Line a baking dish with foil and baking / parchment paper.
- Mix together Sauce in a bowl.
- Place chicken in baking dish, skin side down for thighs and wings. Make sure the pan is big enough so the chicken is squished up next to each other (sauce may not reduce enough), but not so large that there is more than 4″/10 cm between every piece of chicken (sauce may reduce too much).
- Pour over Sauce. Bake 30 minutes. Turn chicken over, spoon over sauce.
- Bake 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. The Sauce should have thickened.
- Stand for 5 minutes, then spoon Sauce over chicken and serve.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
LIFE OF DOZER
Superb display of canine athleticism and sheer determination to ….. well, to be the first to reach a blue rubber duck. 😂
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Hi Nagi. Sticky and delicious; I’m all for hands on, just give me a side of napkins.
RIGHT ON Dorothy!! 🙂
If ever a black blob of coal looked delicious..its right here !!! 🙂
BA HA HA!!!! It DOES look like a lump of coal, doesn’t it????!!
Hi Nagi, You never fail to impress me! Whenever I am having a hard time coming up with something delicious and different, You come to my rescue! Will be trying this dish tomorrow for my family! Thanks for the inspiration and deliciousness you always help me bring to my dinner table!
Thank you for the compliment Nancy! It just warms my heart to think that in some small way, I am helping people around the world make delicious food for their family and friends!!! 🙂 N xx