Oven Baked Chicken Legs - Thighs and Drums
EatSimpleFood.com
This easy bone in, skin on chicken leg ( thighs and drumsticks) is crispy and juicy. It's dry rubbed with a homemade spice mix and oven baked/roasted.
- Prep Time: 5
- Cook Time: 45
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 6 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: International
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
Scale
- 12 pieces of chicken - 6 whole legs (AKA leg quarters) or 6 thighs and 6 drumsticks - bone in, skin on
- 1 1/2 Tbsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- pinch cayenne pepper - optional if you like it hot
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F.
- Pat chicken legs, thighs, or drumsticks dry.
- Mix the paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper together in a small bowl. Sprinkle over chicken.
- Line a baking sheet with foil and place a wire cooling rack on top of the sheet. This elevates the chicken so it doesn't bake or steam in it's own grease and promotes even cooking. Place the chicken on the rack, trying to keep the pieces from touching each other. This is an optional step.
- Bake chicken legs uncovered ~ 45 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165F.
- Rest 5-10 minutes before eating. Add salt to taste. Happy finger lickin' chicken! Beckie
Notes
- Turn the broiler on (watching carefully) for ~2-4 minutes if your chicken skin is not crisp and brown.
- The wire rack is optional. It's nice to have air circulating around the bottom of the chicken but if you don't want to clean it (hey - it happens to us all!), then skip the rack.
- Does your cooked chicken look different than my photos? The difference in the color of the chicken have to do with different ovens cooking at different temperatures. It also has to do with darker and different paprika colors. Point is, watch and get to know your oven (and spices). Look half way through, if the spice mixture is burning turn the oven down to 400F or 375F. If it's not cooking at all, turn it up to 450F.