Family-Style Chicken Adobo
Ingredients
- 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, cut in half
- 0.5 cup white vinegar
- 0.5 cup tamari or soy sauce
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 1 cup chicken broth or water
- 3 carrots, chopped into chunks
- 1 yellow onion, sliced
- 8 garlic cloves, smashed
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 tsp peppercorns or cracked black pepper
Instructions
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After browning the chicken, add the white vinegar and tamari to the pan along with the broth, carrots, onion, garlic, and bay leaves.
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When the chicken and veggies are cooked through, remove them from the pan and reduce the sauce to thicken. Combine and serve!
Recipe Notes
Nail This
When reducing the sauce, don’t leave the dish alone. Keep flipping and playing with the pan covered or uncovered to get the right consistency of the sauce. The secret lies in deglazing the sauce to maximize the flavor. Marinating the night before adds a ton of extra flavor, so it’s best not to skip this step (after all, we’re meal planning here!). If you skip it you’ll survive though—with chicken that’s a tad less robust in flavor.
Flip It
Slow cooker method: Cook either variation approximately 1 hour on high for 5 to 6 hours on low—or until the chicken is cooked through. Do not add more than 1 cup of broth or water, and add the carrots halfway through so that they don’t become too mushy. Transfer the sauce to a saucepan and simmer until it’s reduced, then strain. Pour the reduced sauce over the chicken and serve. Use whole chicken or boneless thighs if that’s what you have. Bone-in thighs are just the moistest.
Leftovers?
(Doubt it, but anything’s possible.) Save the pan gravy from the chicken and add a few tablespoons to rice pilaf or Cauliflower Fried Rice (from my cookbook, Food You Want: For the Life You Crave) to kick their flavor up a notch.
Cut up chicken leftovers for a stir fry—even better add it to the Miracle Chicken and Vegetable Stir Fry (also from my cookbook!) and add some of the adobo sauce to the stir fry gravy.