Loading…
14
Set my air fryer to 400 for 8 minutes on a whim and got the best chicken thighs of my life
I had two pounds of bone-in skin-on thighs sitting in the fridge last Tuesday and zero plan for them. Normally I do 380 for about 20 minutes, flipping once, and they come out fine but the skin is always a little soft in spots. This time I got impatient and cranked it to 400 for 8 minutes, then flipped and ran another 7. Pulled them at 175 internal with a meat thermometer I keep on the counter. The skin came out shatter-crisp, like actual fried chicken crackling, and the meat stayed juicy because thighs are forgiving. I have made them this way four times since and my wife asked what I changed, so I had to admit I was just messing around. The real lesson is that I had been under-cooking the skin for two years hoping to keep the meat moist, when the fat in the thighs handles the heat just fine. Has anyone else gone hotter and shorter with dark meat, and did you have to drop the temp at all for a second batch?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
matthewgonzalez24d ago
Ha, Dave's drumstick story is a good warning but I gotta push back on one thing, thighs aren't really "forgiving" because of the fat so much as the connective tissue. That collagen breaks down around 170-175 and turns into gelatin, which is what keeps them juicy even when you push the temp. Fat does help, sure, but a lean cut with that same structure would still survive the heat. That's also why your 175 pull is spot on, if you pulled them at 160 like a breast they'd be chewy instead of tender.
5
joseph_murray824d ago
My buddy Dave did something close to this with drumsticks on his Traeger last month, ran them at 425 for about 25 minutes total and the skin came out like potato chips. His problem was the second batch, though. He threw them on right after the first ones came off while the grill was still blazing and the outside charred before the inside caught up, so you may want to let it drop back to 400 and give it a few minutes to settle. Your point about thighs being forgiving is the whole thing here. That fat renders out slow and keeps everything underneath from drying, which is why the hot and fast thing works on dark meat and turns breasts into shoe leather.
3