Here’s an easy recipe for chicken quarters that are seasoned with an amazing balsamic sauce and fresh rosemary. The flavors are perfectly compliment the tender, flavorful and juicy dark meat of the chicken legs and thighs. And to make the meal all the better, we’ll add to the same pan, some delectable potato wedges that melt in your mouth. It all cooks up in about 40 minutes and it’s ready to serve. What’s more, we can add some fresh asparagus to the pan about half way through cooking and we’ve now got a complete meal.
I love sheet pan recipes because everything goes in one place and cooks and that’s it. Well sort of. In order for a sheet pan recipe to be successful, the cooking times and temperature of the ingredients has to be the same. In this case, we’re doing 425 F for about 40 minutes. And halfway through the cooking time, when we add the balsamic sauce to the chicken, we can also add in fresh asparagus. We’ll just want to toss the asparagus in a little olive oil and season with a pinch of salt first, then it can go right into the middle of the pan. And… here’s the best part… we can get everything into the oven after just a few minutes of prep. Then, we make our magical balsamic sauce. Oh my goodness let’s talk about that for a bit.
Balsamic Sauce with a secret ingredient
Balsamic vinegar is a dark Italian vinegar that been aged in barrels. It has a bold, almost fruity flavor with a very distinctive taste that lends itself so well to a variety of excellent dishes. For our balsamic sauce we’re going to add together balsamic vinegar with chicken broth, brown sugar, some fresh rosemary and flat leaf parsley and the secret ingredient – malt vinegar. Why two vinegars? Simple, the other ingredients in the sauce marry the flavors together perfectly to create a savory sauce for the chicken that is an absolute delight. Nothing will be too overpowering. Everything will accentuate the flavor of the chicken to make it more savory than you can imagine.
Heavenly potato wedges
Russet potatoes are so good when they’re made into roasted potato wedges. They have a naturally light, fluffy and earthy flavor, that, when roasted, have a slight, chewy crunch on the outside and a buttery texture on the inside. For this recipe we continue with the balsamic and rosemary theme, this time adding garlic. We use both minced garlic and garlic powder. The powder permeates the potatoes bringing the flavor to the inside, the minced garlic works on the outside of the potato and will roast to bring out additional goodness.
PrintRecipe
Sheet Pan Chicken Quarters and Potatoes
- Total Time: 55 mins
- Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
Chicken
- 4 chicken quarters
- 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
- ½ cup balsamic vinegar
- ¼ cup chicken stock
- 1 tbs malt vinegar
- 1 tbs brown sugar
- 1 tbs fresh rosemary, chopped
- 1 tbs flat leaf parsley, chopped
- 1tbs olive oil
- salt to taste
Potato Wedges
- 6 small/medium russet potatoes
- 3 tbs fresh chopped rosemary
- 2 tbs balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 2 tbs minced garlic
- 2 tbs chopped parsley, flat leaf
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
- Line a large baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.
- Layout chicken quarters on sheet pan, place a sprig of rosemary under the skin of each chicken quarter. Brush each chicken quarter with olive oil and salt to taste.
- Peel potatoes and cut into wedges.
- In a bowl mix all the potato ingredients and toss the wedges until all are well coated. Layout potato wedges on sheet pan with the chicken and out into oven. Set timer for 40 minutes.
- In a small pot, add the remaining chicken ingredients (⅓ cup balsamic vinegar, ¼ cup chicken broth, 1tbs malt vinegar, 1tbs brown sugar, 1tbs chopped flat leaf parsley, 1tbs chopped rosemary), heat over low heat to simmer.
- At the 20 minute mark, carefully remove pan and use a brush to coat the chicken quarters with the balsamic mix. Also, you can add fresh asparagus to the middle of the pan at this point. Return pan to oven.
- After 40 minutes are complete, remove pan and let cool 5 minutes before serving. Use remaining balsamic sauce to pour over chicken.
Notes
Recipe by Brian Schlau
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 40 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Sheet pan
- Cuisine: American
Reginald Tucker says
I tried this recipe on Sunday and I must say it was the best Rosemary chicken I made. The sauce was very flavorful and the chicken was nice and tender. I added some tri-colored potatoes and carrots. This is my permanent recipe when I want rosemary chicken.
icharmeat says
Good tasting recipe. Will need to be tweaked for your particular cooking environment.
This is my first sheet pan dinner and it was pretty darn good. I’m in my 50s and know my way around a kitchen so i did see a couple of things that weren’t explained well enough for someone new to cooking and looking for a safe recipe to attempt.
1. oven temperature. I know my oven runs 15F cooler than the dial indicates at typical baking temperatures (350 up) but for the sake of testing the recipe, i followed as written and set my dial at 425.. at 20 minutes, the chicken had rendered a smidgen fat but still looked like chicken that had been sitting out warm for a few hours and not like half-baked chicken.
2. the glaze. The way the recipe is written, it sounds as if you just warm the glaze ingredients over low heat and, voila- glaze! This preparation needs some reduction to become a glaze. Still, i followed the instructions and at 20 minutes tried to glaze the chicken with the sauce. It was too thin and probably only a tablespoon of glaze was used brushing it on the meat. At this point i set my timer for 10 minutes and deviated by increasing the oven temp to a bit over actual 425F and i put the spurs to the glaze for reduction. There is some fat and some sugar in the glaze so the bubbles in the sauce will change as the water ratio is reduced. by the time the sauce was making big bubbles, the timer rang and i brushed the chicken again. Still thin enough to run off the brush and the bird but the glaze was much more glaze-like. Set the timer for another 10 minutes and then pulled the pan. The chicken skin was crisp, the meat was moist and delicious. The potatoes were good but the added heat to burned the herbs so there was a tradeoff. I find the recipe worth dialing in to my particular kitchen equipment.
With some trials in your kitchen, this could be a very tasty weeknight meal.