Italian Dressing Chicken

2 hours or longer (depends on marinade time)/easy peasy/4 servings
nutrition per serving:
384 calories, 23g protein, 3g carbs, 29g fat, 3g sugar

Ingredients

• 4 chicken thighs, bone-in
• 1 bottle of Zesty Italian Dressing
  (easy to double the recipe!)

directions

1. Marinate the chicken in the Italian Dressing at least an hour or overnight. (see notes)
2. Preheat your oven (350* F) or grill (400*F).
3. Cook the chicken:

On the grill: cook on direct heat 5 minutes per side. Get those great grill marks going! Move chicken to indirect heat for another 5-10 minutes. Use your instant-read thermometer and remove from the grill when the chicken pieces reach 165 degrees F.

In the oven: plan on cooking the chicken for about an hour. Turn the chicken pieces over about 30 minutes into the bake. While the oven is open, use your instant-read thermometer to get an idea as to the chicken temperature at this point. The chicken will not be done yet, but you are getting there! You are looking for 165 degrees F. Depending on how big the chicken pieces are, it could take 45 minutes to an hour for the chicken to be fully cooked.

    4. Take the chicken off the grill/out of the oven and serve with your favorite sides.

There are SO many details in the NOTES, so please read on!

notes

Chicken:

You can use any part of the chicken that you like. I personally like using chicken thighs because they are juicier and have more flavor, in my humble opinion. Bone-in or boneless is your preference. I think bone-in has more flavor! Hey, you may like chicken breasts – all good! It doesn’t matter what parts you prefer. And like I said above, this recipe is easy to double(or triple) if you are cooking for a crew.

Marinating the chicken:

Let’s talk about the Italian Dressing. Use what you like! In my experience, I use a Zesty Italian Dressing. The flavor tends to be stronger than the regular Italian dressing so you will taste the delicious spices moreso when the chicken is cooked.

Pierce the chicken pieces with a fork so the marinade gets into the chicken while marinating.

Place the chicken pieces in a Ziploc bag. Pour the Italian dressing into the bag, over the chicken. Use enough salad dressing to cover the chicken. Seal the bag (try to get as much air out as possible while sealing) and make sure the chicken is fully coated by moving the chicken around from the outside of the bag.
Place the bag of marinaded chicken in the fridge, preferably on a plate or bowl. Marinade the chicken for a few hours, making sure you turn the bag over a few times to get that Italian dressing in all the nooks and crannies of the chicken!

Cooking Method:

And let’s talk about the cook method. You can bake the chicken if you like. You can even broil them. My preference is to GRILL the chicken on a propane grill on my back deck! Bottom line, you need to make sure you cook the chicken thoroughly – you can use temp probes or use one of those instant read thermometers. I use the instant read for these – you can open the oven or grilltop and quickly poke the chicken, get an instant read and get outta there quickly.

Cooking the chicken:

Remove the chicken from the dressing/marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Place the chicken in a baking dish or sheet pan; discard the remaining dressing/marinade.

If you are baking the chicken in an oven, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake the chicken, turning the chicken occasionally. It should take about an hour to bake chicken pieces. REMEMBER to use an instant-read thermometer – the chicken should be cooked to 165 degrees F.
If you are grilling the chicken, preheat your grill to 400 degrees F. Place the chicken pieces directly on the heat and close the lid. After 5 minutes, open the lid and flip the chicken pieces. Close the lid again and cook for another 5 minutes.
After these 5 minutes on each side, move the chicken pieces to indirect heat for another 10 minutes or until the internal temp is 165 degrees F.

About using a cooking thermometer:

“It’s like a carpenter without a tape measure.” (Lou, 2025)

So true! You can use a wired thermometer that you leave in the food you are cooking (they sell ones that have a magnet that attaches to the front of your stove) You can also get a wireless thermometer that works over Bluetooth so you can just leave the probe in the meat and watch the temperature on your phone. It really depends on what you are cooking and how you are cooking it. Invest in a good one that’ll last you a while. I use Thermoworks. There are a lot of knockoffs out there, but do me a favor and check out thermometers online at Thermoworks.

Bottom line – you should have 2 kinds of thermometers for cooking – an instant read thermometer and a probe thermometer that you can leave in the meat inside the cooking vessel. For chicken parts I use the instant read and something like roasts and whole chickens and the like, I use my wireless probes that I can watch on my phone. Gotta love technology!

Thermometers will definitely be a “favorite thing” blog post and an “Equipment” blog post! Look for those.

And now is the time to grill. Here in Connecticut, it’s May. Sure, today is rainy and cold, but I don’t want to talk about it. It’s not snowing and I’m out on my back deck cooking up a storm! That is how I roll!