So, I kind of lied about posting on Monday (yesterday). Long story short, my MacBook died because I wasn’t paying attention to the battery usage – luckily everything is back to normal now. This weekend wasn’t too eventful, but I am relishing every last cold-weather moment while I can. I absolutely love winter and am not too fond of the heat – especially the humid summers in the south. Luckily, Charlotte is a little cooler than Charleston or Columbia, where I lived before, but it does get hot and it’s still pretty humid. When I went to visit my brother in Charleston before he moved last summer I was shocked at how hot it was; I felt like I couldn’t even breathe because the air was so thick. I asked my brother, Rich (ps- it’s his birthday today!), if this was just an exceptionally hot day or if I wasn’t used to it after living in Charlotte, and he confirmed that I was just not used to it. After 6 years of living there you would think that I would have remembered, but I definitely did not.
While winter is definitely my favorite, I do always love those first few brisk days in March when you can drive with the windows down during the day, yet the temperature drops enough during the evenings so you can still enjoy those warm and cozy meals. These roasted chicken thighs are absolutely perfect for that kind of weather. It’s similar to this, but because of the lemon juice, buttermilk, and lots of garlic, they have two completely different flavor profiles – you won’t be able to get enough of this buttermilk cream sauce, trust me.
& again, Happy Birthday, Rich! Love you!
Ingredients
- 2 cups buttermilk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1-2 sprigs of thyme, plus more for garnish
- Garlic cloves from 1 head of garlic, peeled
- 3 Tbsp parmigiano-reggiano
- 6-8 chicken thighs, bone-in*
- Salt and pepper
- Juice from half a lemon
Instructions
- In a large pot, add the buttermilk, heavy cream, butter, thyme, garlic cloves, and parmigiano-reggiano and stir to combine. Season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper and add to the pot. Bring the mixture up to a simmer. Cover with a lid, leaving it open just a small crack. Cook over low heat for an hour and a half, stirring the mixture every once in awhile (stir around the chicken). Remove the chicken and place on a baking sheet, skin side up. Remove all but 2-3 cloves of the garlic and discard along with the stem of the thyme.
- Boil the poaching liquid over medium high heat, whisking occasionally, for about 20 minutes or until the sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. It will look like the sauce will never thicken - but after about 15 minutes, the sauce will begin to get thick. If you want, you can strain the sauce (I did not). Transfer the sauce into a bowl and whisk in the lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper, keep warm until ready to serve.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the chicken thighs in the oven skin side up and roast for about 20-25 minutes, or until the skin is brown and crispy. Serve immediately with a little of the sauce on top of the chicken thighs or on the side. Garnish with chopped thyme.
- *I've edited the amount of chicken used for this recipe, from 4 chicken thighs, to 6-8, per the suggestions of readers and myself.
(Adapted from Food & Wine)
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You LOVE WINTER!? Want to switch places!? Uugh I hate it so much, although I do like heartier cold weather food, especially roasted chicken. This is seriously make me rethink my dinner plans.
Hahah I really think we should switch!! I like spring and everything but by the time summer is in full force I am ready for it to be cold immediately! And yes, the best part about the winter is the cold-weather food, I seriously can’t get enough!
That buttermilk sauce is straight out of my childhood. My mom sometimes would add hot sausage to it and call it red eyed gravy. Love this more modern approach. GREG
Biscuits and buttermilk gravy is one of my favorites – and red eye gravy? Even better! Thanks so much, Greg!
Is it necessary to use chicken thighs for this recipe or can chicken breasts be used…. Are the thighs full of fatty meat ?
Hi Amanda- the reason I use chicken thighs is because I find the meat is much more flavorful and since they are really hard to overcook, poaching them in the buttermilk for over an hour doesn’t dry them out. I think you could do this with chicken breasts – but I would buy skin-on so you could still get the crispy, roasted skin, and I would definitely lower the amount of time that you poached it as to not dry out the chicken (I would cook just until they reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit then remove from the buttermilk and then roast them until the skin is crispy). I personally have not tried it with chicken breasts so I can’t tell you that it will be 100% the same, but it seems like it would be pretty close.
As soon as I ran across this recipe, I knew I had to make it- especially since I would just happen to have left over buttermilk from my Thanksgiving cooking.
Holy wow. These were SO good. First off- the entire time the chicken was cooking in the buttermilk mix, I was drooling over the AMAZING smell. Who knew!? Honestly, I’ve never used buttermilk for anything but biscuits and various cakes lol! Now- I am hooked. You were definitely right about one thing- the fact that it will seem like the sauce will never thicken and then tada! Suddenly it is thick! I loved this. So did my relatively picky kids- and my husband. The only thing is that I had WAY more sauce than 4 thighs needed. I could have easily made 6-8 thighs. Definitely will be added to my “must make again” list!
Hi Christine! I’m SO glad you and your family enjoyed this recipe – it’s one of my absolute favorites! It’s a great one to use up leftover buttermilk – which for me, inevitably happens.
You’re definitely right – it does make way more sauce than probably needed and I’ve been meaning to change the recipe to include more chicken, so I’ll do that now. 🙂
Thanks again, I’m glad it turned out so well!
Someone is stealing your content….and mine…and many others. I hate these websites. http://www.1mrecipes.com/roasted-chicken-with-buttermilk-cream-sauce/
Thank you SO much for letting me know – that is awful! Have you contacted the owner of that site to have them remove your content? I will contacting them shortly. Thank you again!
Yes, I did contact them. They made no reply but did take it down. Whenever I see a photo that I recognize, even if I don’t remember the blog, I make a point of tracking down the owner if they are using the entire content instead of linking to it. I know it’s a lot o work to run a blog and I cannot STAND to see someone’s work stolen.
I hope you get this resolved soon too. All the best, Barry.
Well thank you SO much for doing that – you have no idea. I really do appreciate it! I have tried contacting them but they haven’t taken it down nor have they replied. I’ll be contacting them until they do. Again, thank you for bringing this to my attention – we all (bloggers) need to stick together when people do things like this!
Jindabyne! Thanks so much for replying but this is in no way an alfredo sauce! If you had some reading comprehension you could see that! Alfredo is cream and this is buttermilk! Time for some glasses, sweetheart!