Low Sodium Savory Honey Baked Chicken Thighs - Tasty, Healthy Heart Recipes (2024)

Low Sodium Savory Honey Baked Chicken Thighs is an easy weeknight dinner ready in just over 30 minutes with a mouthwatering savory, honey glaze that almost has a soy sauce undertones without the sodium.

Boneless and skinless baked chicken thighs are easy to make in one pan. And if you line the pan with foil, cleanup is a breeze. It is a perfect, quick weeknight or weekend meal with a rice and / or vegetable side.

Most recipes use high sodium soy sauce for the recipe, usually in large quantity, resulting in very high sodium levels. Even when using low sodium soy sauce a serving may reach 520 mg of sodium per serving. Along with ditching any added salt and using a minimal amount of low sodium Worcestershire sauce I have reduced this recipe to more acceptable level for a meal while delivering great taste.

Surprisingly the chicken itself accounts for nearly 3/4 of the amount of sodium per serving!

Low sodium Worcestershire sauce may hard to find on your local store shelves. I have not found a reliable source around locally that stocks it continually. So, I have taken to ordering it online several bottles at a time to stock up.

I love chicken thighs, they are full of so much juicy flavor and usually they are very good price at the grocery store. And they are perfecto for this low sodium marinade.

BEST CHICKEN THIGH FOR BAKING?

Ilike using the bone-in chicken thighs personally because I like using myfingers or chewing the meat off the bone. Although you can use bonelessskinless chicken too, it’s just my personal preference. When using the bone-in chicken,you need to cook about 5 or 10 minutes longer than the boneless.

It would also be yourchoice if you want to use skin-on chicken as it develops a delicious crispy,sweet and savory bark to it that is almost a treat. Depending on how muchyou’re watching your fat and cholesterol, you can typically save on both byremoving the skin.

SKIN ON OR OFF FOR BAKING?

Using the online nutrition calculator, I found it difficult to draw any reliable numbers that I could state here. So it would be your choice to keep the skin on. But here is an interesting article about leaving the chicken skin on. It boils down to it may not be as bad as once thought, at least on an occasional basis along with a well-balanced diet.

In the past, I usually used a cooling rack to set the skin-onchicken so that the fat could drip down and away. Lately since I’ve been eatingmore chicken without the skin on to avoid extra fat, I think I may need tochange and let it cook right down in the juices.

For this recipe I cooked four without skin and two with skinto see what the differences might be. Both were equally good but if I wasn’tworried about extra fat I would go with skin-on.

The next time I cook this I’ll use a 12” inch cast iron skilletlined with tin foil and set the chicken directly down in it as long as it’sskinless.

MARINADE FOR LOW SODIUM CHICKEN THIGHS

When making the marinade,you may decide to double up on it and reserve half of it for use as a dippingsauce for the chicken or to drizzle over your rice or vegetables. It is really thatgood. Do not use uncooked marinade thathas had raw chicken in it.

For this particularrecipe I just gave the chicken a quick dunk in the marinade and spooned a smalldrizzle of marinade on towards the end of cooking. When I have more time nexttime I prepare this, I’m going to let the chicken soak in the marinade for atleast 30 minutes. I imagine the results would be spectacular.

Mix themarinade ingredients together before adding your chicken, and marinate for 30minutes or overnight. If you don’t have time to marinate, don’t worry too much.The sauce has so much flavor, you can get away with baking them right away.

HOW TO BAKE CHICKEN THIGHS WITH SAVORY HONEY

You can marinade ahead of time but thisrecipe also cooks in its own marinade so everything is super easy. Use a foillined cast iron skillet, baking dish or broiler pan to cook them in, arrangechicken thighs in a single layer and pour marinade over the chicken.

Bake chicken thighs at 425°F for 20-25minutes, turning them twice while baking to cover in sauce and stay juicy whilebaking. If using boneless thighs reduce cooking time 5-10 minutes. Chickenshould have an internal reading of 165°F.

As always, please let me know how you like this recipe in the comments! I get motivated when I hear from you and am interested to learn about how you liked and served your Low Sodium Savory Honey Baked Chicken Thighs. And please leave a comment or rating and share any tips you might have.