Asian, Poultry, chicken

Baked 5 Spice Chicken Legs

This delicious chicken is from HapaBento’s 5 Spice Baked Chicken. I don’t pack proper Bentos but love the idea and enjoy the generally quick and easy recipes  and the philosophy of eating multiple colors at each meal. (As an example of my not proper Bentos, today’s lunch was leftover cheese pizza, grape tomatoes, and sliced apple. I said “We need something green” and youngest said “How about green M&Ms?”  I acquiesced! We have a ton of leftover red and green M&Ms from our gingerbread house day.)

This was perfect to make for dinner tonight, cooking a few extra pieces of chicken for lunch tomorrow or the next day.  I used chicken legs, because that’s what I had in the freezer. I marinated less than her hour so poked the chicken legs with a fork a few times to help the marinade penetrate.

• 3 Tbs soy sauce
• 1 -2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• 1 tsp minced garlic

I was marinating 6 chicken legs rather than the 2 chicken breasts or thighs HapaBento used, so I added a bit more oil. Ideally, marinate this for an hour, turning the chicken now and then. Or you can cheat like I did and poke some holes in your chicken with a fork and marinate however long you’ve got (half an hour for me!).  Turn the pieces every now and then.

Preheat the broiler.

Spray a pan with some cooking spray or grease with Crisco or something, then lay the chicken out on it. Broil about 15 minutes, turning every 5 minutes or so.  Then turn the heat down to 350 (and I moved the chicken down an oven rack to the middle of the oven) and bake another 15 minutes or so, until done. 15 minutes was perfect for my chicken legs!

Went great with some steamed rice and steamed snow peas plus this totally delicious Spicy Coconut Rice Noodles and Chicken Soup. (I would have just made that for dinner other than youngest complaining about “just soup” and my needing some lunch packing material!)