Crispy Oven Baked Chicken Thighs with Cornstarch

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Let us show you how to make crispy oven baked chicken thighs! We are including our secret ingredient for making the crispiest chicken!

I love making chicken thighs in the oven. They tend to be more forgiving than chicken breasts and don’t dry out near as easily. Chicken thighs also have a great flavor, which pairs nicely with this crispy oven baked chicken thighs recipe.

I also love that it makes such an easy family-friendly meal. Chicken always pleases my kids, especially when it’s the crispiest chicken like we are making today! If you are looking for other family-friendly chicken recipes, check out our recipe for Sheet Pan Chicken and Potatoes, crockpot buffalo chicken, Creamy Pesto Chicken, and Cheesy Ranch Chicken and Potato Casserole. 

How to make the crispiest oven baked chicken thighs

We use boneless skinless chicken thighs in this recipe. One of the tricks to making crispy oven baked chicken is pounding them thin before baking.

The best way to do this is to put them in a sealable bag and hit them with a rolling pin, meat mallet, water glass bottom, or even a potato masher. You want them to be about 1/4 inch thick, but a little thicker is not going to hurt anything.

Next, you soak them in buttermilk for a few minutes. 

After that, you dip them in eggs and then the crispy coating mixture.

Then you bake them on a rack in the oven. I just use one of my cooling racks inside of a cookie sheet. It helps to keep the airflow going around the chicken and allows the bottom to crisp up too.

The secret ingredient to crispy oven baked chicken thighs

The secret ingredient to making the crispiest chicken is coating the chicken thighs in Argo® Corn Starch. Argo® Corn Starch is the leading corn starch brand with over 100 years of quality and trust over multiple generations. It creates the crispiest chicken with an airy texture that works really well for oven-baked chicken thighs. Note: Check out Argo’s website for more recipes!

I love that Argo® Corn Starch has so many great uses. I reference using it as a thickening agent and making a “corn starch slurry” in many of my recipes. It works really well for thickening up soups like chicken and dumplings or instant pot beef chili and sauces in recipes like this one for Hawaiian chicken. 

It’s also commonly used in Asian cooking for stir-frys. When you use Argo® Corn Starch in your batter for fried chicken, it will give you an audible crunch! Surprisingly, you can also use Argo® Corn Starch to make sidewalk chalk and slime. It is the secret ingredient for so many things!

What to serve with crispy baked chicken?

We love serving chicken thighs with garlic mashed potatoes and honey roasted carrots. If you have an instant pot, serve them with instant pot carrots. Yum!

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