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Gingery Balsamic Grilled Chicken Thighs with Grilled Peaches are luscious, beautiful, and easy to prepare. They’re impressive enough to feed any company coming over for dinner, as well. Best of all, in these difficult economic times, they’re affordable, too!
I found this recipe in the cooking section of the New York Times. The original recipe was written by Melissa Clark, whose recipes are often some of my favorites. I only modified it ever so slightly, by using bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. And by changing up the herbs a little bit. But I have to give her credit!
What Kind of Chicken Do I Need to Make This Dish?
I used chicken thighs: bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. But I honestly believe you could do it with boneless/skinless thighs, or breasts, or drumsticks. Basically, whatever chicken parts you’ve got. Bone-in or boned, skin on, or off. Just remember that the grilling times I’m giving are for bone-in chicken thighs with skin, and adjust your cooking time according to the chicken part you have.
How Can Grilled Chicken Thighs Be Good Enough for Company?
Even though it’s “just grilled chicken thighs”, you’re going to be adding some great flavors and textures. Those flavors and textures will take just plain old grilled chicken thighs into the “Wow!” zone. None of the ways you’ll do this are complicated, at all, either.
The Marinade/Serving Sauce:
This recipe calls for a sauce that you will divide up. Part of it will serve as a marinade, and the rest of it will be a sauce to serve with the meal. You start out by making a batch of the serving sauce. It calls for some finely chopped fresh ginger, some balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt. Only three ingredients! How easy is that?
You’ll use two tablespoons of that balsamic ginger marinade/sauce to marinate the raw chicken pieces in, reserving the rest. You’ll add to your marinade base a few extras: rosemary, garlic, soy sauce and lime juice. Let the chicken marinate in that, in the fridge, for an hour or two.
The reserved marinade/sauce that you set aside earlier will be served with the meal. The marinade that’s been used on the raw chicken needs to be thrown out when you’re done marinating the chicken in it, because, ew, raw chicken = salmonella.
Herbed Honey Butter for the Peaches
Grilled peaches by themselves are lovely. Grilling peaches gives them a more intense flavor from the caramelization that comes with the grill marks. But in this recipe, you combine butter, rosemary, and a little bit of honey and spread that on the peaches before grilling them.
Not only does that keep the peaches from sticking to the grill, but it adds a lovely sweet herbal note to their intense flavor. It’s really hard to explain how luscious they become, but they absolutely melt in your mouth.
Greek Yogurt (but this is optional).
If you’re not a fan of yogurt, you can skip this part of the dish, but I served my gingery balsamic grilled chicken and peaches on top of a smeared spoonful of yogurt. I was surprised how much I loved the tang of the yogurt alongside the sweetness of the peaches and the chicken in its gingery balsamic glaze. Its creamy texture added another pleasing note to this dish. So if you like yogurt at all, I’d encourage you to try it. We loved it.
Gingery Balsamic Grilled Chicken Thighs with Grilled Peaches
Gingery Balsamic Grilled Chicken Thighs with Grilled Peaches are luscious, beautiful, easy and affordable. Impressive enough to feed company!
Ingredients
- FOR THE CHICKEN:
- 5 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons finely grated/minced fresh ginger
- Sea Salt
- 2 1/2 lb. of chicken thighs
- 4 sprigs of rosemary, needles removed
- 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
- 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt, for serving (optional)
- 8 torn fresh basil leaves
- FOR THE PEACHES:
- 2 Tablespoons melted butter
- 2 teaspoons fresh rosemary needles, chopped
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 2 ripe peaches, halved and pitted
Instructions
- In a bowl, mix together balsamic vinegar, minced ginger and a pinch of salt.
- Season chicken thighs all over with salt. Separate out 2 T. of the balsamic vinegar, ginger and garlic into another bowl. Add the rosemary, garlic, soy sauce and 1 t. of lime juice. This will be your chicken marinade. Place the seasoned chicken thighs into a ziplock bag or a bowl that will hold them all closely. Close the bag, or cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow them to marinate in the fridge for 1 - 2 hours, turning them at around the halfway mark, so as to allow both sides of the chicken to have time resting in the marinade.
- Light and pre-heat the grill.
- Prepare the peaches: in a bowl combine melted butter, rosemary and honey. Brush peaches with herbed honey butter mixture. Grill over direct heat until you have grill marks, about 2-4 minutes per side. transfer them to a serving platter, and brush with more herbed honey butter. Sprinkle with sea salt.
- Remove chicken from marinade and grill until charred and browned, about 6-8 minutes per side.
- Spoon and smear a big serving spoon of yogurt on each plate, and place chicken thigh on top of yogurt, and peach beside chicken. Drizzle with reserved balsamic ginger serving sauce. Sprinkle with chopped basil leaves.
Notes
We served our with rice, but farro or quinoa would be great as well. We drizzled the serving sauce over the rice, and sprinkled it with basil as well. So yummy!
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Toni C
Thursday 7th of September 2023
Please read your narrative and recipe again. (Bet you typed it after midnight when house was quiet--God bless you!!) There are some discrepancies and contradictions in measurements (use 2 TBL or reserve 2 TBL?), ingredients (like thyme or rosemary--which?), and directions (creating marinade) between your narrative and the actual recipe. Thank you for such a yummy-sounding recipe: I want to do it right. ;-)
Susan Williams
Saturday 16th of September 2023
Dear Toni, Thank you for carefully reading my recipe. I did mention using thyme initially, and in the ingredients, I listed rosemary, so I corrected them both to read "rosemary". It's nice that you caught that and brought it to my attention. Quite honestly, either herb would be delicious, but since the chicken contains rosemary, you might also want to use rosemary on the peaches, to carry through with that flavor note. Thyme would also be delicious on the peaches, and add variety. So, you do you. :)
As to the marinade and the sauce, after carefully re-reading what I've written, I feel that it's correct. Sorry that my wording tripped you up. Let me try to re-word it. You're going to start by making a sauce of ginger, balsamic vinegar, and salt. Most of it you'll hold in the fridge till dinner time. But remove 2 tablespoons of it to use in the marinade, before you stow the dinnertime sauce away. To make the marinade: start it with the 2 tablespoons of liquid that you removed from your serving sauce. Add to that mixture the the rosemary, garlic, soy sauce and lime juice. That will be the marinade for your chicken, which will hang out in it for a while, before the chicken gets grilled. I hope that helps.