Spice up your dinner with this quick and easy marinade. Here, we’re using it with chicken thighs for a quick, easy, and delicious weeknight dinner. Roasted potatoes cook alongside the chicken, making for easy cleanup!
Cliff Notes:
Remove bones from chicken thighs, keep skin on. Make Peri Peri marinade by combining and blitzing all sauce ingredients in food processor. Cover chicken with marinade and refrigerate for 4-12 hours. Remove from marinade; bake at 425° for 10-15 minutes. While chicken cooks, peel and cut potatoes into 1″ cubes. Toss with olive oil and seasonings. Add to baking pan with chicken and cook another 10-15 minutes until chicken is cooked through and potatoes are tender. Flip chicken and broil 2-3 minutes until lightly browned.
Make It Your Own:
– Instead of thighs, use chicken breast, wings, or a whole bird; this marinade is also good with pork.
– Make Peri Peri shrimp, but reduce marinating time to no more than 20 minutes.
– Use any extra marinade as a sauce: Mix with 1/2 cup of water and cook Peri Peri sauce in a pan until the water evaporates and the mixture is cooked through. Use as a topping on fish, eggs, potatoes, etc. (do not re-use any marinade that was in contact with raw meat).
– Adjust the spice level by varying the number and types of chilies used.
Simplify It:
– Make the Peri Peri marinade up to 1 week ahead, and store in fridge until ready to use.
If you like spicy food, you will love this dinner! It’s very customizable to your heat preference, and there are several make-ahead steps that help make this very quick and easy. Plus, all the cooking can be done on a single, aluminum foil-covered baking sheet, so cleanup is easy.
Peri Peri sauce is traditionally made with the peri peri pepper, also known as the African birds-eye chili. But I’ve never found those in my local grocery store, so I just look for several hot chilies and use those. I’ve been very pleased when I’ve used serrano, Thai, jalapenos, and an un-named little red chili that was just labeled “hot.” So if you can’t find anything labeled peri peri, just take a look around the produce department and in the international food aisle and find something that looks promising and give it a shot. I usually use at least two different types of peppers, which allows me to have some control over the spice level.
The roasted potatoes are a pretty basic recipe. I’ve used garlic powder and smoked paprika here to echo some of the same spices used in the peri peri sauce, but the versatility of the seasonings makes it one of my go-to options for any weeknight dinner. Since I had a rack in the pan, I roasted the potatoes directly on the rack, but if you cook them directly on the pan, they’ll get extra crispy.
Spicy Peri Peri Chicken Thighs with Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients
- FOR THE PERI PERI CHICKEN:
- 1.5-2 pounds Chicken Thighs, skin-on
- 6-10 spicy hot Chili Peppers, such as birds-eye, thai, serrano, jalapeno, fresno (mix & match)
- 3 large Garlic cloves
- 2″ piece fresh Ginger
- 1 large Shallot
- 1/2 c chopped Cilantro
- 1/2 teaspoon Smoked Paprika
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Black Pepper
- 2 Tablespoons White Vinegar
- 3/4 cup Olive Oil
- ———————
- FOR THE POTATOES:
- 1 lb Potatoes (Russet or Yukon Gold work well)
- 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon Smoked Paprika
Instructions
- If desired, remove the bones from the chicken thighs, keeping the skin on (add 5-10 minutes to the cooking time if leaving the bone in). Place into a large zip-top bag or container with a lid.
- ———————
- Make the Peri Peri sauce:
- Roughly chop the chili peppers, garlic, ginger, shallot, and cilantro. Place all in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until finely chopped. Add in smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and white vinegar and blitz again. With the food processor running, pour in the olive oil.
- Add the peri peri sauce to the chicken thighs (you may not need it all – store any leftover in the fridge for a week for another use), seal bag or container with the chicken and marinade and let rest in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, up to 12 before cooking.
- When ready to cook, heat oven to 425°.
- Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place an oven-safe rack in the pan.
- Remove the chicken from the marinade and place on rack, skin-side up. Cook for 10-15 minutes.
- ———————
- Meanwhile, prepare the potatoes:
- Peel the potatoes and cut into approximately 1″ cubes. Toss with olive oil and seasonings until very well coated.
- After the chicken has been cooking for 15 minutes, add the potatoes to the roasting pan and cook another 15-20 minutes.
- Test the internal temperature of the chicken thighs. when they reach 175°, turn on the broiler and flip the chicken over – skin side down. Broil the chicken and potatoes for 2-3 minutes until starting to brown. Remove from oven and serve.
Thanks for sharing this yummy recipe
I didn’t try beef but it looks good I will try this