Seasoning Your Chicken Thighs Under The Skin Is The Ticket To Flavortown

If you're using chicken breasts for all your chicken dishes, you may want to rethink that choice — chicken thighs have a bit of extra fat, which will yield more flavorful meat that doesn't dry out as easily. If you're looking to infuse as much flavor as possible into your chicken dish, you can start by opting for skin-on chicken thighs. The skin essentially helps trap the moisture within the meat and allows you to develop that delectably crispy, browned exterior (this can be best achieved by always cooking your chicken thighs skin-side down).

Another crucial consideration is that the presence of the skin allows you to level up the taste of your chicken by ensuring all the spices and seasonings you add really soak into the meat. You may be familiar with slathering your seasoning and fat mixture under the skin of larger poultry cuts, such as when you're roasting a whole chicken or turkey. However, you can apply the exact same technique to chicken thighs. It may be a little more time-consuming to individually season each thigh piece and require a more delicate touch to ensure you don't rip the skin, but the results will be worth it.

For skinless cuts of meat, you likely just slather on your seasoning mixture and call it a day. That's all you really can do, apart from placing your protein in a marinade for a few hours to soak in those flavors. However, if you're dealing with protein that still has the skin on, it opens up your seasoning options.

Sure, you could absolutely just coat the exterior with seasoning. However, there's a good chance that a lot of it won't reach the meat of the chicken thighs since it's just sitting on the surface, which serves as a protective barrier for the bird. Instead, disperse all that flavor underneath the skin. Rather than flavoring the skin, you're getting the seasoning in contact with the actual thigh meat, which will help really infuse that flavor. It also ensures that all those spices and seasonings stay exactly where you want them to be, improving the taste of your chicken rather than the bottom of your pan.

And, while chicken thighs aren't as likely to dry out as leaner poultry like turkey, mixing your spices with butter to create a flavor-packed paste is never a bad idea. It'll add both flavor and moisture, leveling up your chicken thigh meat even more.