When chicken breasts get boring but you still need your protein, whole chicken leg comes to the rescue! Even if you’re not tracking your protein intake, I’m sure a home cooked meal that requires little attention and clean up would pique your interest.

The best thing about making this chicken confit recipe is that there is very little clean up since it is made in the oven! It’s perfect for a weekend dinner in, or even week days in our case.

Prep time: 5 minutes (not including side dishes), 4 - 24 hours for dry brine in the fridge

Cook time: 120 - 150 minutes in the oven

Serves: 2

Ingredients for Dry Brine

• 2 Whole chicken legs, bone in and skin on

• Sugar

• Salt

• Black pepper

• 3 - 4 garlic cloves, lightly smashed

• Herbs of choice - we used fresh thyme

Method for Dry Brine

• Dry chicken legs well

• Mix equal parts salt & sugar in a bowl

• Rub salt & sugar onto the chicken skin, evenly covering them

• Put the chicken legs in a fridge-safe container

• Throw in smashed garlic cloves, herbs and ground/whole black pepper

• Leave in fridge for a minimum of 4 hours to overnight, covered

Notes

1. We try to buy whole chicken legs at 250g each

2. I did not specify the amount of sugar and salt because every chicken leg will require a different amount depending on size

3. You do not need to cover every part of the chicken skin with salt and sugar. As long as you are evenly rubbing the chicken leg with salt and sugar it should be good

4. Also do not worry about too much salt or sugar because it will be rubbed off after the dry brine process and before cooking

5. For herbs, you can use dried or fresh. We are not fans of dried herbs though. You can use rosemary instead of thyme.

Ingredients for Chicken Confit

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Chicken legs, garlic and herbs from dry brine

Method for Chicken Confit

• Preheat oven to 190ºC

• After a minimum of 4 hours in the fridge, take the chicken legs out and dust off excess salt and sugar with a paper towel. Do not throw away the garlic and herbs.

• In a deep oven-safe pot, add chicken legs, garlic and herbs, then extra virgin olive oil to cover the legs entirely.

• Put the lid on tightly and let it cook in the oven, checking around the 60 to 90 minute mark. You are looking out for the chicken skin & meat to pull back from the bone.

• Once the chicken pulls back from the bone, flip each leg carefully to the other side and allow it to cook until a nice, golden brown finish on both sides.

• If both sides of the chicken leg are a nice golden brown but the skin is not crisp enough for you, you can put the legs on a tray and continue to bake them until the desired crispiness is achieved. It shouldn’t take long, so keep watch on it.

Notes

1. This recipe uses a TON of olive oil, and we know it’s not the most affordable oil option. What we do is we save the oil in a heat-proof, fridge-safe jar for making the same dish again in the future. Since it is full of flavour, it can be used like duck fat for making other dishes like roasted potatoes.

2. You can absolutely use duck fat or vegetable oil for this recipe. By the way, this is also how you make duck confit, just replace chicken legs for duck legs!

3. We have never used vegetable oil for this recipe before, and don’t plan to. We actually won’t suggest it, but if that is all you have or are comfortable with using, it is still a viable option.

4. Please be extremely careful when handling the chicken legs as they are cooking in the oven. They become super tender and the meat will fall off the bone at the slightest touch!

We usually serve this with smashed potatoes and blanched vegetables on the side just to keep it simple and easy to clean up. You can pair your chicken confit with anything you desire, mashed potatoes is a pretty common accompaniment!