Sheet-Pan Chicken Thighs With Spicy Corn

Updated Oct. 11, 2023

Sheet-Pan Chicken Thighs With Spicy Corn
David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Total Time
55 minutes, plus at least 30 minutes’ marinating
Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
40 minutes, plus at least 30 minutes’ marinating
Rating
5(2,662)
Notes
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The spicy, salty jalapeño brine balances sweet corn kernels, which roast on a sheet pan alongside chicken thighs in this simple, summery weeknight meal. The chicken, marinated with basil, garlic and a little mayonnaise, stays juicy even after a brief stint under the broiler. You can serve this hot from the oven or at room temperature — it’s equally good each way — and cold leftovers are excellent piled onto lettuce or avocado for a salad the next day.

Featured in: A Sheet-Pan Chicken for Corn Season

Learn: How to Make a Sheet-Pan Dinner

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Ingredients

Yield:4 to 6 servings
  • 2pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
  • teaspoons fine sea or table salt
  • 2tablespoons mayonnaise
  • ¼cup finely chopped basil, plus more for garnish
  • 2garlic cloves, finely grated or minced
  • cup chopped pickled jalapeños, plus brine from the jar
  • 4cups fresh or frozen corn kernels (from about 4 ears)
  • 3tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
  • 5scallions, thinly sliced
  • 1jalapeño, sliced into rings
  • 1lime, halved
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

393 calories; 18 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 5 grams polyunsaturated fat; 27 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 4 grams sugars; 34 grams protein; 672 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Season the chicken all over with ¾ teaspoon of salt. In a large bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, basil, garlic and 2 tablespoons jalapeño brine. Add the chicken to the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes and up to 6 hours.

  2. Step 2

    Heat oven to 425 degrees. In a medium bowl, toss together corn, pickled jalapeños, olive oil, remaining 1 teaspoon salt and half of the scallions (save remaining scallions for serving).

  3. Step 3

    Arrange the chicken on a baking sheet, spacing it out. Roast for 12 minutes. Spoon the corn mixture onto the empty parts of the baking sheet. Drizzle chicken and corn with oil. Continue to roast until the chicken is cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes longer, stirring the corn once while roasting.

  4. Step 4

    Turn the broiler on high and broil the chicken and corn until golden brown in spots, 2 to 4 minutes (watch carefully so it doesn’t burn, though a little blistering is nice).

  5. Step 5

    Garnish chicken and corn with basil, remaining scallions and fresh jalapeño slices. Sprinkle with more pickled jalapeño brine and squeeze with lime juice. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Ratings

5 out of 5
2,662 user ratings
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Cooking Notes

A worthy twist in one of the best recipes ever - Melissa’s Ginger Lime Chicken. Mayo is an amazing marinade and the generous salt does wonders - even increase it - an especially good technique is you swap in boneless breasts. Basil and corn is a delightful combo and the kick from the peppers is just enough. Easy to do in an aluminum pan on the grill to keep your kitchen cool too. Delightful!

Banger! This was so good we decided to start the weekend early. Only mod was using more pickled jalapenos (1/2 cup?) and forgoing the fresh jalapeno at the end. (Actually we first tried it with some slices of fresh jalapeno, but found it overwhelmed a bit. Taster's choice here.). Had a simple, cool tomato salad to go with, and it complimented like a champ.

This was eyes-rolled-back-in-your-head good. The fat from the chicken and the olive oil, the acid and spice from the jalapeños, sweetness from the corn, and generous salt, this was perfect. So, so, so good. My husband is still talking about it I pre-salted the chicken in the morning, and then followed the recipe (including the salting) to a T. I love David's idea of tomatoes and will do a cherry tomato salad on the side next time, maybe some warm tortillas on the table too. Unbelievably good.

Bone-in chicken thighs with skin add even more flavor. Plus, I used locally pickled jalapenos for more spice.

My son requested Jasmine rice, which was perfect with the chicken and corn.

It was way too hot to turn on the oven this late July and, as I'm lucky enough to have a grill, that's the route I went to great effect. Tossed all the jalapenos, fresh and pickled, along with the scallions, in a grill pan, grilled corn (on the cob before slicing it off), tossed all that together and used as a bed for the grilled chicken. Don't skip the pickled jalapenos as they are really good together with the fresh. Will definitely make this on a sheet pan in cooler months. Thanks Melissa!

Made exactly as directed- used Trader Joe's frozen roasted corn and added a sprinkling of cotija cheese to garnish. Arriba!

Prepared as written with fresh corn. Excellent! The dining audience thought it was a bit too oily and next time I’d reduce the oil in the corn to 2-2.5 T and restrain myself with the drizzle. Broiling worked well at almost 5 minutes.

Lime juice, or -- since you like it -- mix some adobo sauce (from canned chipotles) in with a little rice vinegar and use that. Then finely dice some chipotles and mix with the corn, olive oil, and scallions (maybe with a little less salt depending on how salty your brand is). That's how I'd do it if serving to a friend who didn't like pickled brine but liked chipotles!

This was amazing. The chicken was extremely flavorful. I’ll definitely be making again!

Making this for the 1st time I played it by the book... outta the park!! (& outta of the fridge the next morning). The recipe is basically deconstructed elote (mexican street corn) with one key ingredient missing... Cotija (aged cows's milk cheese fr Michoacan Mexico) so I added about 1/4 cup of crumbles to the garnish & it certainly didn't suck. Proportions were spot on & I loved the chicken marination idea & broiling at the finish! Will be making this again real soon!

I followed recipe exactly and used fresh off the cob corn from the farmer’s market. Was quite concerned about how much water the dish was throwing off in the oven, and thankfully the broiling part eliminated more moisture. I left it in broiler until chicken started to brown and corn to blister here and there. Still, boneless and skinless thighs came across as a bit unattractive and flabby, but corn was delicious. Would use skin on and bone in next time, with a salt and herb rub. Personal pref.

This was delicious. I could not face turning on the oven in August, thus I decided to use chicken breast cutlets and sauté in a nonstick pan. The chicken browned beautifully. Once finished, I sautés de corn in the same pan. I used white corn and cilantro. Absolutely fabulous.

The supermarket had no thighs, so I bought breasts. Then I spent some time trying to figure out the difference in cooking time. No conclusive answer, so I cut the breasts into thigh-sized pieces and went for the low-end of the cooking time. ( And, yes: the meat thermometer!) Loved the marinade and the flavor added by the pickled jalapeños and brine. Next time I might skip the fresh jalapeño.

I had a lot of trouble getting the results described in the recipe. In particular, during the first step of cooking the chicken thighs alone. My pan was filled with liquid at the end of the 10-15 minutes. It could have been the chicken I purchased or overcrowded the pan. This is a general struggle I have with all sheet-pan recipes. I drained as much liquid from the pan as possible and added the corn. Unfortunately, the extra liquid made the end result come more steamed rather than roasted.

Made this per recipe. Added the roasted new potatoes w/Ancho spice as a reader suggested. This was so delicious. Let it sit and had it warm but I could definitely see this served at room temp especially during the summer. It would be a real crowd pleaser. The heat was definitely present and I could see altering either the Jalapeno jus amount or the amount of chopped pickled jalapeños to your taste. It mellowed a bit even after it sat a while when we went back for seconds. Winner recipe!

I loved, loved, loved the flavors in this, but I’m not sure it amounted to a full meal, even by sheet-pan-dinner standards. I think next time I’ll experiment with a lime-garlic yogurt sauce and serve with pita

So good! My corn didn’t roast up as much as I would have liked- next time I’ll put it in with the chicken. Had chicken breasts instead of thighs- the same cook time worked just fine. Added smoked paprika and chili powder when seasoning the corn. Had cherry tomatoes to use up so I quartered those and threw them in with the corn- they played together well! Served over arugula dressed with lime juice and olive oil. This benefits with a creamy element - feta was perfect. Lovely dinner!

Tasty! I like the contrast of flavors with the sweet and spicy. Just used a bag of TJ’s roasted frozen corn worked perfectly. I would say that the jalapeño brine added quite a bit of spice, at least in my version, so I will reduce that next time. I did like the contrast with pickled jalapeños with fresh ones in the final presentation.

if you're not a mayonnaise fan, I subbed plain yogurt and a dash of olive oil, and it turned out great.

Followed the recipe exactly although I did reduce the olive oil to 2.5tbs and skipped the drizzle on the corn. The corn and the jalapeño mix is beyond delicious. My son declared, “put this on the rotation”.

Back in the 90s, there was a restaurant in West Hollywood, Indigo, that served a chicken with corn and black beans dish in a spicy, chili cream sauce. I have tried to duplicate the flavors without success. Basil - who knew??? I made a few changes: a can of hatch chilis instead of jalapenos, MSG sprinkled on the raw chicken with the salt and doubled the mayo and basil in the marinade. And I added rinsed, canned black beans. Heaven.

Wow. We knew we would like this but it far exceeded expectations. A nice spice kick, juicy chicken, and just a wonderfully flavorful dish overall. Every ingredient works together perfectly. Also pretty easy to make when you don't have tons of energy or time. We had planned to eat this with guacamole and tortillas, but it is best served on its own.

Prepared this as written but with the addition of serving the corn and chicken with roasted potatoes (olive oil, chipotle salt and ancho seasoning). Tossed the potatoes and added to a separate sheet pan and placed in the oven for the entire span of chicken cooking time. Absolutely delish!

Made a second time - too much salt!

This is excellent. I only had about 1.3 lb of chicken so I made up for it with a pint of cherry tomatoes and a small sliced zucchini. Adjusted salt and lime juice accordingly. A little extra basil. Added the fresh jalapeños during the broil step. Delicious.

Outstanding recipe. The only alterations I made were to chop up one sweet red pepper and mix it in with the corn as well as adding a little extra lime juice. Absolutely delicious. Served over brown rice. It was a hit.

Loved it. Fresh jalapeño a bit intense - will try smaller dice next time.

Delicious and easy. I didn't change a thing. I rarely write comments, but this recipe was so good, I wanted to add my five-star review.

I liked this a lot, himself though it needed “ sauce” … whatever that is It was better the second day

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