Roasted Leg Quarters

 
You know what’s awesome? A ten pound bag of leg quarters for .49 cents a pound!! Oh yeah, I snagged a bag this weekend. Leg quarters are SO versatile. Plus I’m a fan of chicken. Oh who am I kidding, I’m a fan of food! Anyhow, this recipe is not my mom’s recipe (that’ll come) but it is inspired by one of her meals. Her roasted chicken legs are the BEST! I can not begin to explain. But anyone can make some really tasty roasted chicken. It’s a super delish main dish (say that 3x really fast!), slap a couple of sides together and you have one lovely Sunday dinner! Oh and don’t forget that roasted leg quarters are an easy way to feed a large group of people.

The first thing we have to do, after removing the excess fat and skin, is season them and good. Now about the whole chicken skin debate. I often cook with it on… fat adds flavor. Sorry! HOWEVER, I will remove it afterwards and not eat it. Kinda like patting my slice of pizza. I feel better because although I COULD have made it with LESS fat, I did in the end reduce the amount of fat I consumed. So I win, right?!
Ingredients:

Shout out to my SIL Dee... the Wildtree products are FANTASTIC!!! All natural and many other advantages that I can’t quite recall at the moment but I do know I love to use ‘em. As you might have guessed, I’m a fan of garlic so this is why there are three layers of garlic in the ingredients I chose to use when I seasoned the leg quarters. After rinsing and patting the leg quarters dry, I drizzled the grapeseed garlic oil on them. Keep in mind this is dark meat and thus has a higher fat content. Don’t use too much oil! Just enough to lightly coat the chicken. Then I finely minced two cloves of garlic and added to the chicken. I sprinkled the seasonings along with salt and pepper to taste. I mixed the leg quarters around to thoroughly coat. I may have even rubbed the herbs in. It can’t hurt right?

I had one leg quarter that was much larger than the rest so I scooted the similar sized pieces close together and left Sasquatch all by his lonesome. I did this to try to ensure they all cooked evenly. I baked this at 400 for 30 minutes, flipped it over and basted and baked it for 10 more minutes. I flipped it over one last time, basted and cooked it for 10 more minutes. DO NOT COVER! You want that skin to crisp up and brown nicely.

Oh it was good.. so, so good… tender and full of flavor. And the juices it made? Shut up. YUM! Now I will say next time I’m gonna bake them at 425 for 45 minutes because I want to get more brown into that skin (yes, the skin I don’t eat) but really, roasted chicken is super versatile, quick and simple.

6 leg quarters
1 tbsp WildTree grapeseed garlic oil (sub plain olive oil)
adobo (sub chicken flavored seasoning)
WildTree garlic & herb mix (experiment with whatever herbs you have on hand!)
freshly ground pepper
2 garlic cloves
Kosher salt