Chicken Leg Recipes

By Food & Wine
Updated March 08, 2018
Christopher Testani
This versatile cut of poultry doesn't just belong on the grill; there are plenty of tasty wasy to enjoy chicken legs. From spice-braised chicken legs with red wine and tomato to lemon-onion roast chicken legs, get inspired by these delicious and satisfying chicken recipes.
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Sheet-Pan Chicken with Sourdough and Bacon

Con Poulos
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Food & Wine test kitchen deputy editor Justin Chapple’s roast chicken legs drip meaty, delicious fat onto a smoky, peppery bed of potatoes, red onion and crispy croutons.

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Coriander-and-Almond-Crusted Chicken Legs

© John Kernick
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New York City chef Seamus Mullen uses almonds and spices to make a crisp and tasty crust for chicken legs; the coating is also good on lamb chops.

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Spice-Braised Chicken Legs with Red Wine and Tomato

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Alexandra Guarnaschelli's mother, Maria, the legendary cookbook editor at W.W. Norton, made a version of this lightly spicy dish when Guarnaschelli was a kid. Alex has adapted the recipe by adding red wine.

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Fennel-Garlic Chicken Legs

CON POULOS
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To get the most from a marinade--like the fennel-garlic one used for the chicken here--slash the skin and meat so the flavors can seep in.

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Spiced Chicken Legs with Apricots and Raisins

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Fruity and peppery, this exotic dish will perk up your midweek menu. Yet it's no more trouble than the simplest chicken recipe in your repertoire.

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Chilaquiles-Style Roasted Chicken Legs

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Chilaquiles is a baked Mexican dish that's often made with leftover shredded chicken, tortilla strips and cheese. In her more substantial and refined version, Grace Parisi bakes whole chicken legs with tomatoes, hominy, jalapenos and tortilla chips.

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Roasted Chicken Legs with Potatoes and Kale

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For this one-pan dish, Grace Parisi roasts chicken legs on a bed of potatoes and kale so the meaty juices keep the vegetables moist.

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Buffalo Chicken Legs

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Frank's makes for the best buffalo sauce but if you don't have it you can substitute a Louisiana-style hot sauce.

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Lemon-Onion Roast Chicken Legs

© Evi Abeler
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Thinly sliced lemons add a bit of zing to this simple, weeknight roast chicken.

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Chicken Legs Marinated in Yogurt and Spices

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This pungent cumin-and-coriander-spiked marinade is reminiscent of restaurant tandoori spicing--without the scary red dye. The yogurt helps the spices penetrate and tenderize the meat. Also try the marinade with pork medallions and lamb leg or blade steaks.

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Breaded Oven Baked Chicken Legs

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If you have seasoned bread crumbs instead of panko, you can use them -- just add the cheese.

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Hearty Braised Chicken Legs

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Pureeing garlic, onion and cilantro, then cooking them with white mushrooms in chicken fat, gives this tomato-based sauce an incredible depth of flavor.

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Cider-Braised Chicken Legs with Onion-Raisin Sauce

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Serve this dish with creamy polenta or couscous to sop up the chicken's delicious sweet-tart sauce.

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Soy-Maple Glazed Chicken Legs

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These chicken legs are great, hot out of the oven, but leftovers make a killer chicken salad.

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Milk-Braised Chicken Legs

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This seemingly simple dish gains an unusual sweetness from the milk, a less-than-common braising liquid for chicken.

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Honey-Lime Glazed Chicken Legs

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Chipotle peppers in adobo are available, canned, from most supermarkets.

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Thai Coconut Braised Chicken Legs

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This dish is a complete meal when served alongside cook white rice.

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Wine-Baked Chicken Legs with Marjoram

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The pungent marjoram in the creamy sauce for this crisp-skinned chicken might seem like it would overwhelm the aromas of melon and honeysuckle in a New Zealand Chardonnay. But lightly oaked Chardonnay can stand up to foods with strong flavors like fresh herbs as long as the dish has some richness.

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Braised Chicken Legs with Green Olives

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Chef Way In his book Braise, Daniel Boulud braises duck legs for several hours until they are meltingly tender and incredibly flavorful.

Easy Way Braising chicken in a liquid that combines onions, carrots, bacon and olives creates complex flavor relatively quickly.

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Grilled Curried Chicken Legs

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A yogurt marinade produces extremely tender meat. The longer these drumsticks marinate, the deeper their flavor.

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Chicken Legs with Roasted Garlic-Ancho Sauce

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Marcia Kiesel has a knack for creating dishes that taste like more than the sum of their parts. Here, she uses only five ingredients, including pleasantly bitter ancho chiles (dried poblanos), to make a luscious sauce that you'd swear has butter in it, even though it doesn't. The secret is the slow-roasted garlic, which becomes wonderfully silky in the blender. The sauce is fabulous with the juicy chicken legs here, but would also be good with anything from grilled corn to lamb chops.

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Chicken Legs Coq au Vin

Con Poulos
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Coq au vin is typically made with a cut-up chicken; this version uses only drumsticks, so the meat cooks uniformly in the rich red wine sauce.

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Fish Sauce–
Caramel Chicken


Christopher Testani
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This addictive take on ga kho gung, Vietnamese caramelized chicken with ginger and fish sauce, is sweetened with shallots, garlic, and palm sugar.

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