We eat a lot of chicken. It’s fast, tasty, and mostly healthy (I’m not one to heavily sauce it unless it’s an occasion or I’m having a craving and I rarely deep fry). I have a standard rub that I use before grilling or roasting, but I use that rub on pork as well, so occasionally I need to change things up. Cook’s Illustrated had a recipe for Thai Cornish Game Hens, which sounded delicious, but I wasn’t going to wrangle game hens for an everyday meal. That didn’t mean I couldn’t use most of the recipe, specifically the marinade, for my everyday chicken thighs, though.

Thai Grilled Chicken Thighs

Serves 3-4, can be doubled

1 lb. (about 6 large) chicken thighs, boneless and skinless

Marinade:

½ c. chopped cilantro (or ¼ c. freeze dried and 1 T. water)

6 garlic cloves, peeled

1 T. Splenda® brown sugar or 1 ½ T. regular brown sugar

1 tsp. white pepper

1 tsp. ground coriander

1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 tsp. salt

1 ½ T. fish sauce

Pulse all of the marinade ingredients except for the fish sauce in a food processor until finely chopped. Transfer to a small bowl and add the fish sauce, it will have the consistency of a loose paste.

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Slather both sides of chicken thighs with marinade, place in a plastic bag and refrigerate for 6 to 24 hours, flipping bag once. Grill on gas, charcoal or stovetop until cooked through. Remove to a platter and let rest, tented with foil for 10 minutes. Serve.

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I LOVED this recipe. You can adjust the red pepper flakes to your taste, I used a bit more ’cause we like it spicy!

For all you Weight Watchers this total recipe as written is 13 Smart Points, so, depending on how hungry you are, it’s about 5 points for 1/3 of the recipe or about 1 point per ounce of chicken. 

Enjoy!

Deborah

Get the printable recipe here: Thai Grilled Chicken Thighs