This easy and delicious chicken and mushrooms recipe featuring a tangy, savory marinade can be thrown together and baked in just one dish! Your family will relish the crispy, juicy, and flavorful chicken thighs and flavorful mushroom sauce. And it’s all Whole30 compatible, paleo, and gluten-free, too!
The best way to cook chicken thighs and mushrooms
You know me: I’m always looking for shortcuts to delicious weeknight meals—and this one’s a real winner winner chicken dinner! The flavor in this chicken mushroom dish is so good, especially because it only takes a few minutes to throw together.
It’s so freaking easy: first, whisk together a marinade with pantry staples like sherry vinegar, coconut aminos, fish sauce, and dijon mustard. Then, toss the chicken in it and marinate it in the fridge for up to two days.
When you’re ready to cook the dish, chop up your favorite variety of mushrooms and toss ’em with some shallots, garlic, and one of my Nom Nom Paleo seasoning blends in a casserole dish. Plop the chicken on top of the seasoned mushrooms and pop it all in the oven.
The resulting dish is a showstopper: the chicken thighs are juicy and flavorful, the skin is crispy, and the cooking juices from the tender chicken combine with the roasted mushrooms, shallots, and garlic to form a savory and lip-smacking sauce.
Your whole family will devour this chicken recipe and you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to throw together. Clean up is easy, too; after all, you’ll use just one pan. No additional skillet involved!
Ingredients
- Sherry vinegar: To add a little tang to the marinade, I add sherry vinegar. Feel free to substitute your favorite vinegar or even some lemon juice in place of sherry vinegar.
- Extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil: In place of butter, I like to use EVOO or avocado oil but if you’re a butter lover, I’m not going to stop you!
- Coconut aminos: I love combining coconut aminos and fish sauce to add a punch of umami without having to use soy sauce.
- Red Boat fish sauce
- Dijon style mustard
- Nom Nom Paleo spice blend: You can use Diamond Crystal kosher salt and black pepper to season this dish, but my umami-packed spice blends put the flavors over the top! Pick any of ’em: all four work great in this recipe and I interchange them all the time!
- Chicken thighs: I prefer using skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs in this recipe because they’re more flavorful, hard to overcook, and the skin gets super crispy. If you insist on using boneless skinless chicken thighs, bake the mushrooms first for 15 minutes and then add the marinated thighs on top. Continue baking until the thighs are cooked through, about 20 minutes or so. And if you’re using boneless skinless chicken breasts instead, also cook the mushrooms first for about 15 minutes and add the marinated chicken breasts on top—but because chicken breast can dry out if overcooked, carefully monitor the internal temperature of the chicken and take it out when it reaches about 150°F.
- Assorted mixed mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces: You can use any kind of mushrooms that you like, ranging from boring old button mushrooms (a.k.a. cremini mushrooms) to more exotic varieties like chanterelles, porcini, enoki, and shiitake mushrooms. Just make sure they’e cut roughly the same size so they cook evenly.
- Shallots: Sliced shallots become meltingly tender when roasted under the chicken. Feel free to substitute regular onion or even a dash of onion powder if you don’t have any.
- Garlic
- Fresh herbs: I like adding minced chives or fresh chopped parsley as an optional garnish at the end.
How to make baked chicken and mushrooms
Marinate the chicken
Grab a large mixing bowl and add the sherry vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, coconut aminos, fish sauce, dijon mustard, and 2 teaspoons of your favorite Nom Nom Paleo spice blend.
Stir well to combine.
Add the skin-on chicken thighs to the bowl and toss to coat well in the marinade.
Cover the bowl and marinate in the fridge for at least an hour and up to a day.
Bake the chicken and mushrooms
When you’re ready to bake the chicken, heat the oven to 400°F on convection mode or 425°F on regular mode with the rack in the middle.
Dump the mushrooms, shallot, garlic, and remaining ½ teaspoon of Nom Nom Paleo spice blend in a 9×13 baking dish.
Toss well to combine and spread the mushrooms evenly on the bottom of the baking dish.
Place the chicken thighs skin-side down in a single layer on top of the mushrooms.
Pour the marinade all over the chicken.
Bake in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes. At the 30 minute mark, flip the chicken thighs skin-side up.
The chicken is ready when the skin has browned and the internal temperature in the thickest part of the meat reaches at least 175°F when measured with an instant-read meat thermometer.
Top with minced chives…
…and divide the chicken, mushrooms, and sauce onto serving plates. Enjoy!
What can you serve with it?
You can serve this chicken mushroom recipe with cauliflower rice, garlic cauliflower mashed “potatoes”, crispy potatoes, zucchini noodles, or a tasty chopped salad.
Not paleo? Feel free to serve this with steamed white rice, pasta, or egg noodles.
How to save leftovers
Leftover chicken and mushrooms can be stored in a sealed airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Before reheating the chicken and mushrooms, you can remove any congealed fat from the surface to make the sauce less greasy.
More chicken weeknight dinners!
Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013), Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017), and Nom Nom Paleo: Let’s Go! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2022).
Chicken and Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons sherry vinegar
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil
- 2 tablespoons coconut aminos
- 1 tablespoon Red Boat fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2½ teaspoons your favorite Nom Nom Paleo Spice blend or Diamond Crystal kosher salt, divided
- 3 pounds chicken thighs
- 1 pound mixed mushrooms cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 large shallots thinly sliced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- ¼ cup minced chives or minced Italian parsley
Instructions
- Grab a large mixing bowl and make the marinade by whisking together the sherry vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, coconut aminos, fish sauce, dijon mustard, and 2 teaspoons of your favorite Nom Nom Paleo spice blend or Diamond Crystal kosher salt.
- Add the chicken to the bowl and toss well to coat the chicken in the marinade. Cover the bowl and marinate in the fridge for at least an hour and up to a day.
- When you’re ready to bake the chicken, heat the oven to 400°F on convection mode or 425°F conventional with the rack in the middle.
- Toss the mushrooms, shallot, garlic, and remaining ½ teaspoon of Nom Nom Paleo spice blend or Diamond Crystal kosher salt in a 9×13 baking dish.
- Place the chicken thighs on top of the mushrooms, skin-side down. Pour the marinade all over the chicken.
- Bake in the oven for about 45 to 50 minutes total. At the 30 minute mark, flip the chicken thighs skin-side up. The chicken is ready when the skin has browned and the internal temperature in the thickest part of the meat reaches at least 175°F.
- Top with minced chives or chopped parsley and enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I’m a French trained cook who sadly never managed to finish Culinary School way back when in the 70’s.
I have been cooking since 1977, yeah I’m dating myself, and we even lived in Lyon for 2.5 years.
I got your yellow and red cook books through my “Buy Nothing “group and bought the green one a bit ago.
Your recipes have changed my flavors and I love it!
I was raised by a mom who only when I moved out started experimenting with recipes.
Dutch food can be quite boring!
Making this tonight as we are big fans of mushroom since the start of the pandemic.
I was just wondering what to prep for dinner when Michelle’s email with this recipe appeared in my inbox.
I had all the ingredients for the marinade, which I made up and put in the fridge, then all I needed to get from the grocery was the chicken and mushrooms. Dinner was great an d my husband keeps remarking about how good it is, particularly the sauce. Leftovers reheated are very good too (there’s just 2 of us, so it’s dinner for many meals this week). My tip: separate chicken from the sauce/mushrooms into two containers when you put leftovers in the fridge. Makes it much easier to skim the fat off the sauce the next day. Highly recommend.
Easy and tasty!
Delicious combination of flavours. Followed everything exactly as written and except I used red wine vinegar and it was a hit.
Really loved the dark brown sauce from the mushrooms. I used a smaller pan as I was worried it might dry out. Good idea. It stayed rich and juicy. Thank you!! Will definitely use again
Delicious! Someone gave a a great tip on separating the mushrooms from the chicken for storage and it was a great suggestion. The sauce was super delicious.
Just made this last night and it was awesome!
I didn’t have sherry vinegar so I used rice vinegar.
My market only had boneless/skinless thighs, so I followed the instructions to start the mushrooms ahead in that case, and it turned out great.
Thank you!