Baked Chicken Legs (with Best Marinade)
Baked Chicken Legs recipe with garlic, lemon and dijon. An easy and excellent chicken marinade with so much flavor. The longer you marinate this, the better (at least 6 hours and ideally overnight).
Baked Chicken Legs with the best garlic-lemon-dijon marinade that is easy and excellent. Roasting the chicken legs results in crispy skin and a juicy center.
Chicken is on the regular rotation at our house. We love chicken dinners like Chicken Tetrazzini, our favorite Chicken Parmesan, and Chicken Alfredo Pasta because they are simple, tasty, and inexpensive.
There’s something so comforting and welcoming about the aroma of Roast Chicken, and you’ll get compliments on these chicken legs before they even come out of the kamado.
The marinade really makes this recipe. Have you tried mustard on chicken? It’s mouthwatering. Everything about this recipe is good from the tasty marinade and easy prep to the juicy dark meat center and crisp salty chicken skin.
Here’s our secret – we use the same marinade on our famous Baked Salmon. We were thrilled to find out it’s amazing on chicken as well. P.S. This also happens to be low carb, paleo, and keto-friendly.
- Olive oil – we used light oil which has a higher smoke point, not extra virgin
- Garlic – pressed or finely minced cloves
- Parsley – flat-leaf or Italian parsley
- Lemon juice – freshly squeezed is best
- Mustard – Dijon mustard adds great depth of flavor
- Salt and black pepper – season generously as some of the marinade is lost to the baking sheet.
Chicken legs are our favorite because they are dark meat so they naturally have great flavor. Coat them in this amazing marinade and these may just be the tastiest chicken drumsticks you’ve had.
- Make the Marinade: Stir together all of the marinade ingredients in a bowl.
- Marinate the Chicken: Place chicken legs in a large mixing bowl or a large Ziploc bag. Pour the marinade over the chicken and toss by hand to evenly coat the chicken and get some of it under the skins. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate for 6 hours or overnight, turning the legs once.
- Bake Chicken Legs: Preheat the kamado and line a baking sheet with foil or a Silpat liner.Arrange chicken skin-side-down.Brush chicken legs with any extra marinade left in the mixing bowl.Bake 25 minutes at 400˚F skin side down, then turn the chicken legs kamado and bake another 25 minutes.
For Extra Crispy Skin: bake on a rack for crisp skin all around then broil on high heat for 2 to 3 minutes until the skins have browned.
If you want to make this recipe with different cuts of chicken, you’ll want to adjust the timings and cook to a safe internal temperature of 165 degrees on an instant-read thermometer. If using chicken breast or tenderloins, cut the marinating time in half.
- Chicken breasts: bake for 25-30 minutes
- Chicken tenderloins: bake 15-20 minutes
- Bone-in, skin-on thighs: bake 45- 50 minutes
- Boneless chicken thighs: bake 20-25 minutes
- Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes – so quick and easy
- Cucumber Tomato Avocado Salad – fresh, light, and satisfying
- Panzanella Salad – with tomatoes and homemade croutons
- Corn on the Cob – perfect corn in 15 minutes
- Pat dry chicken: use paper towels to pat dry chicken before applying marinade.
- Give it time to marinate: The secret to excellent chicken legs is lengthy marinating (at least 6 hours and ideally overnight). For even more flavor, massage the marinade under the skin of each chicken leg.
- Use the pan drippings: brush chicken with the lemony sauce drippings in the baking pan after they come out of the oven.