Smoked Chicken Thighs

If you are a fan of chicken wings you should give this recipe a try. Chicken thighs are a bit more tender than white meat on a chicken. The combination of the seasoning and bbq sauce with the tenderness of the meat and the crunch of the skin gives this meal a really great flavor combination.

I have heard chicken thighs described as little meat pillows. If prepared correctly they do resemble mini pillows and they taste delicious. You can buy them boneless if you want to spend a little more or you can buy them bone in and do a little prep work to remove the bone before cooking. In this recipe I will be using bone in but just know you can buy boneless and skip the preperation step if you would like to do so. After getting the bone removed the prep for this meal is fairly simple and they only take an hour or so to cook. Like other chicken meals the only things to look out for is to make sure we get the skin crisped up. I cook them at a higher temperature and apply a little cornstarch to the skin to help acheive this.

Cooking Basics

This is the optional step if you decide to buy bone in chicken thighs. You will need to take a boning knife cut around the 2 ends of the bone in the thigh and remove the bone. Once you do it to the first one you will get the hang of it and it actually goes pretty quickly. An additional step that I like to do is remove a little of the skin. When the bone is removed you can fold the meat onto itself and then leave just enough skin to cover the top. You will be cutting off about half of the skin and then lay the remaining skin over the meat as shown in the picture below

Now we are ready to prepare the chicken thighs to cook. First you will want to completely pat dry the thighs to help make sure the skin crisps up. Once this is done you will unfold the thighs and apply rub to both sides of the meat. I used pit boss sweet heat rub but feel free to use yrou favorite chicken rub. Once both sides have been seasoned you will fold them back up into pillow form and lay the skin over the top. You will now apply a little cornstarch and some rub to the skin. The cornstarch will help the skin dry out even more to help ensure we dont get chewy tough skin at the end of this. Once this is done you are ready to throw these on the smoker or grill.

You will want to preheat your smoker or grill to 325 to start this cook. The thighs will be cook on indirect heat. If you are using a grill you will need one that has multiple zones ot acheive this. Bacially you will turn on the burner on one side of the grill to get up to temperature but you will be putting the thighs on the side of the grill where the burners are not on to allow them to cook more slowly. If using a smoker just make sure the sear plate is closed and you will be cooking with indrect heat. Chicken thighs are smaller pieces of meat so they will not take a very long time to cook. Because of this you will be cooking at a higher temp to make sure the skin gets crispy. The thighs will cook this way until they reach an internal temperature of 145 to 150 degrees.

At this point it is time for the sauce. I love making my own bbq sauces to use but if I am in a hurry or am just feeling lazy I usually go with Sweet Baby Rays or Stubbs. I will be adding posts every now and then for bbq sauce recipes in case you are interested in trying out your own. There are plenty of recipes already out on line as well if you would like to try this now. Using a brush we will apply the saquce to the thighs and then continue to cook until the internal temperature of the thighs has reached 165 degrees. Once this happens they are ready to come off the grill.

Final Thoughts

• Bone in vs Boneless - I have not tried this meal with boneless thighs but I can;t imagine it woudl affect the final product. It might just save you a little time if you are ok with spending a little more. As much as I like to smoke I try to buy the cheaper variety and do the work myself.
• Rubs - I love the sweet and heat combination with chicken but there are a ton of different rubs to experiment with. If you find one that you really enjoyed drop me a comment and let me know. I am always interested in trying out different rubs.
• Crisp Skin - If you have ready any of my other posts about turkey or chicken getting the skin crispy is always the toughest part to get right. Using the tips I mentioned you should not have any problem but if for some reason the skin still feels tough gettnig close to the end you can flip the thighs over so the skin is down over direct heat to give them an extra blast of heat.

Recipe