Cooking consistently good chicken is hard to do, but not when you employ the sous vide technique. This recipe for sous vide spicy chicken thighs is practically foolproof, which means you’ll be enjoying tender, juicy, and tasty chicken every single time you make it.
This dish is great by itself or on a bed of rice for a healthy chicken meal. I like to add brussels sprouts, avocado, sour cream, feta, and green olives for a healthy chicken bowl. This chicken comes out spicy and flavorful, so it goes great with Mexican dishes like fajitas, burritos, or my favorite – nachos.
Another great aspect of this recipe is how easy it is compared to other methods of cooking chicken. Uncooked chicken is objectively gross. Everything it touches has to be cleaned. EVERYTHING. And when you get chicken juice on your hands – now everything you touch is gross.
This method only requires you to handle the raw chicken once, and it is especially convenient for preparing multiple meals in advance. That is because we’ll end up placing the prepared chicken into plastic bags and freezing them until they are ready to cook. When frozen in this way, chicken can stay good for a very long time. In fact, the USDA says that frozen chicken will stay good forever – although for the best flavor and texture you’ll want to eat it within nine months of freezing.
Staying clean while you prep the chicken
The number one thing to keep in mind when handling raw chicken is that anything that chicken juice touches is now contaminated. Treat it as you would anything that is absolutely disgusting. When you are done preparing the chicken, you’ll need to be very thorough to clean every little thing the chicken or chicken juice has touched or you will be dealing with some seriously bad smells the next day. Not only that, but if you ingest it things could go very bad for you indeed.
I’ll be using nitrile gloves when I handle my chicken not only because it makes cleanup easier, but also because the chicken juice burns my hands after a while. I don’t think I have especially tender hands, so you may run into the same problem if you don’t also wear protection.
Sous vide cooking is not totally foolproof (but it is if you follow the steps)
They used to say that food can cook in the sous vide for many hours past their cook time and will be fine. That is absolutely not true.
The longer you cook, the more done your meat will be. Period. And with this recipe, I’ve found that the peak time to remove the chicken is exactly at four hours. Any less runs the risk of being undercooked. Much more and you will begin to sacrifice tenderness. So just stick with the instructions and you’ll be eating the tastiest, juiciest, most tender chicken thighs every time.
A word about equipment
Not all houses have a sous vide. But the good news is that they are not expensive and they can save you a whole lot of time. In addition to being easy to use and versatile, cooking sous vide can free up the oven and stovetop for other dishes.
I used the Anova Nano sous vide cooker for several years, but have found that I prefer the quieter and cheaper Greater Goods cooker instead. Their plastic container with lid and heat shield is also a great deal and fits perfectly with their cooker.
My kitchen is rather cramped, so instead of using a full size vacuum sealer, I use a small handheld device to seal specially made vacuum seal bags. When I first started I used the manual pump, and I still like to have that on hand in case my batteries are out, but now I prefer to use this inexpensive electronic vacuum sealer from VMSTR. In either case, you will receive the bags when you purchase the pump.
All told, for this complete sous vide setup you’ll need to spend $90 for the cooker, $55 for the plastic container, and $30 for the vacuum sealer and bags for a grand total of $175. This may seem steep, but the benefit is in cooking delicious foods consistently, easily, with less mess and less time spent. I use my sous vide cooker to make creme brulee, reheated brisket leftovers, chicken, tamales and even steak. Some people use it to make hardboiled eggs or more complicated egg dishes like soft-boiled or poached. So if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, buying a sous vide cooker may be worth your while.
Spicing and bagging the chicken (the hardest part)
Now lets prepare our sous vide spicy chicken thighs! We’ll start with one package of chicken thighs, or approximately 1.25-1.5 lbs of meat. Don’t worry if you get more or less by 1/2 pound. But if you have more than 2 lbs of meat, you should consider doubling the spices.
Bird’s eye view: We’re going to mix all the dry spices together, and then we’ll coat the chicken with it and place the chicken in the plastic bags – freezing them until it’s time to cook.
This part really should be done in a step-by-step manner to avoid having to repeatedly wash your hands in-between steps. Here’s how I approach it:
- Label your plastic bags. I write something like “Sous Vide Spicy Chicken Thighs – Organic”. I also add the date and the estimated weight.
- Open your plastic bags and roll the top outward so it stands and stays open on its own. I like to prepare 1 plastic bag per 1/2 – 1 lb of chicken.
- Mix all the dry spices in a small bowl
- Place spices, chicken, and plastic bags beside a larger bowl that will be used for spicing the chicken.
- Put on gloves.
- Open the package of chicken and place your raw chicken in the large bowl.
*No need to wash the chicken. In fact, some believe that washing increases the risk of contaminating your kitchen more than if you didn’t. It’s entirely unnecessary. - Thoroughly coat the chicken in spices.
- Place chicken in the plastic bags.
- Remove rubber gloves and dispose. Wash hands if they become contaminated while removing the gloves.
- Pour some olive oil on the chicken until well coated.
- Seal the plastic bags and place them in another area of the kitchen.
- Immediately clean the entire area where the chicken was prepared and wash your hands throughly.
- Use the pump to remove all air from the plastic bags, then place them in the freezer.
Cooking and cutting the chicken (the easy part)
Now that you’ve done the hard part, finishing will be a breeze. On the day you want to cook, fill your sous vide container with hot water from the tap and set your cooker to 4 hours at 165 degrees. Place the bags in the cooker and go about your day.
Once they are done cooking, simply remove the bags and slice the chicken. It’s important to try to cut across (not with but against) the natural grain of the meat. This will result in the most tender chicken possible.
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Sous Vide Spicy Chicken Thighs
Description
Making delicious sous vide spicy chicken thighs is easy, and practically guarantees tender and juicy chicken every single time.
Preparation will take less than 30 minutes, and cook time is 4 hours.
Ingredients
1.25–1.75 lbs Chicken Thighs
1 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Chipotle Powder
2 tsp Cumin
2 tsp Paprika
2 tsp Garlic powder
2 tsp Thyme
2 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Cayenne
1/2 cup Olive Oil
Instructions
Preparation:
Mix all dry spices together.
Coat chicken in spices liberally and place chicken in plastic sous vide bags.
Pour olive oil on chicken inside the bags until well coated.
Seal bags and vacuum seal.
Freeze chicken until ready to cook.
Cooking:
Set sous vide to 165 degrees.
Place bag of chicken in sous vide and set timer for 4 hours.
Remove chicken from water bath and slice immediately.
Enjoy! Your chicken is ready to eat.