I’ve always had this fascination with Chicken With 40 Cloves of Garlic because it just feels so over the top. 40 cloves! That’s so many! It almost seems like sheer madness and yet it absolutely works, in the very tastiest way. This Baked Roasted Garlic Chicken is the more approachable weeknight version of that dish, more or less. You don’t need quite 40 cloves (nor do you need a whole chicken) but it’s still all about the sweet and nutty roasted garlic flavor. And all about just how delicious baked chicken can be.

This recipe uses chicken thighs and takes just thirty minutes of cooking time so it’s a little more casual of a chicken dinner than its inspiration. You’ll need four to six chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on please), some olive oil, and onion, just 20 cloves of garlic, some thyme, some flour, white wine, and a bit of chicken broth. It’s not just about the chicken and garlic, see, it also comes with an irresistible pan sauce.

You’ll season and sear your chicken first, without worrying about cooking it through at this point. You just want to get some nice color on the skin and give it a chance to crisp up. Using the residual oil and fat that’s released into the pan, you’ll cook down the onions and garlic until they start to soften, just about five minutes, while the chicken hangs out on a plate.

Leave your garlic cloves whole! You won’t get the same flavor effect with minced or sliced garlic.

Then it’s time to build the sauce by stirring in flour and thyme and then using white wine to deglaze the pan. Chicken stock rounds out the sauce and then the chicken can hop back into the pan to finish cooking through.

It should only take about fifteen minutes in the oven for the chicken to finish cooking through. As long as your pan is tightly covered, the sauce should still be plentiful and those garlic cloves will definitely come out soft, sweet, and oh-so-delicious. Happy cooking!