As I was rushing out the door to work yesterday I quickly looked in the freezer for something for dinner. I am not a woman to defrost in the microwave when I get home – I like to be slightly organised although that is not always the case!

Without much thought I grabbed a bag of chicken thighs and tossed them in the  kitchen sink to defrost and headed to work.

Getting home some 11 hours later, tired and hungry I looked at the chicken thighs and wondered what to do with them? I remembered this recipe, and with only a couple of pantry staple ingredients needed, knew it was possible to get this together quickly – and isn’t that what you need on a work night?

If your don’t want to eat skin-on chicken, still cook the dish with the skin-on, even if you don’t eat it. The skin will protect the meat from drying out.

• 1/4 to 1/3 cup smooth Dijon mustard
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup honey
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 8 chicken thighs (or legs) – for a family of 4
• Salt
• 2 sprigs rosemary (or a generous sprinkling of dried rosemary)
• Freshly ground black pepper
  1 Preheat the oven to 180°c bake or 160°c fan bake.   In a large bowl, mix mustard with the honey, and olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and taste. Add more salt and mustard until you get the flavor where you want it.
  2 Salt the chicken lightly and lay the pieces skin-side up in a shallow casserole dish. Spoon the honey mustard sauce over the chicken. Place the rosemary sprigs in between the pieces of chicken.
  3 Bake for 45 minutes (if cooking 8 pieces – 20-25 minutes for 4)  or until the thighs read 175° on a meat thermometer, or the juices run clear when the meat is pierced with a knife. Remove the casserole pan from the oven, use a spoon to spoon off any excess chicken fat that has rendered during the cooking.
  Sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper over the chicken before you serve.

This recipe is plenty enough for a family of four – if you are like us with no children at home anymore – cut the recipe in half – or cook all of the chicken thighs and freeze for another night.

I served this very tasty Honey Mustard Chicken dish with creamy mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and green beans. I keep the vegetables clean (without sauces) as the Honey Mustard Chicken created some sauce and this was yummy over the mash!

Happy cooking xx