Chicken legs- this is almost the simplest and most affordable food in the world. It would seem that it could be easier and more banal than throwing chicken legs into a frying pan or baking sheet and in less than an hour bite into the tender juicy fatty meat, holding the delicious chicken pieces with your hands and sucking each bone with pleasure? Our ancestors did something like this thousands of years ago, and now such a philosophy of nutrition is not alien to many of us, because chicken fast food establishments are flourishing in the world for a reason. However, sometimes you want to please yourself and your loved ones with some easy-to-prepare, but at the same time unusual and maybe even gourmet chicken dish, without using rare ingredients and complex culinary manipulations. And in this case, my today's recipe for chicken legs baked in onion sauce with addition orange juice, may well come to your aid.
Following this simple recipe, from the most common and inexpensive products, you can quite simply and quickly cook an unusually tasty chicken that adults and even small children will like. In that original recipe chicken legs are pre-fried in a pan until golden brown, which allows them to seal all the juices, and then baked in the oven with a rich sweet and sour sauce made from onions and oranges. The result is juicy and very tender chicken meat, covered with an appetizing glossy crust with an unusual and surprisingly pleasant taste and aroma, and the remaining onion sauce on the baking sheet can brighten up any side dish, turning it into a separate original dish. Try the recipe for baked chicken legs and you will see for yourself that this amazing chicken is simply impossible to tear yourself away from!
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How to cook delicious chicken legs in the oven - a simple recipe for baked chicken legs in onion sauce with step by step photos
INGREDIENTS:
- 10 - 12 chicken drumsticks
- 2 heads of onion
- 2 oranges
- 3 - 4 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsp. l. balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsp. l. vegetable oil
- 15 g butter
- salt, pepper, provencal herbs
COOKING METHOD:
1. In order to cook chicken legs in onion sauce, wash the chicken pieces, dry them and sprinkle salt, pepper and Provencal herbs on all sides.
2. Peel and finely chop the onion. 
3. In a large frying pan, heat the vegetable oil and fry the legs over medium heat until golden brown, about 5 minutes on each side. 
4. Put the fried chicken legs on a baking sheet or in a baking dish in one layer. It is not necessary to grease the baking sheet with oil, as the fat from the fried chicken will be enough. 
5. In the pan in which the legs were fried, melt butter, put crushed onion and fry it over medium heat until transparent for 8 - 10 minutes.
6. Add garlic, passed through a press or cut into small pieces, into the pan with onions and mix. 
7. Pour in the balsamic vinegar and juice squeezed from two oranges, mix and simmer the sauce over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated. At the end of cooking, lightly salt and pepper the onion sauce for chicken. 
8. Pour the chicken legs with the resulting onion sauce. 
9. Bake the chicken in a preheated oven at 190°C for 20 minutes. Then carefully turn the legs over, grease their surface with the sauce accumulated at the bottom and cook for another 15-20 minutes until a delicious golden brown. 
Tender, fragrant and unusually juicy chicken legs in onion sauce are ready! 
How to make diet chicken legs in onion sauce
Of course, everyone knows that chicken legs are not the healthiest product in the world, and there are much more healthy and dietary meats that should be preferred in your daily diet. However, most people are not ready to completely give up their favorite foods in favor of exclusively lean and super-healthy foods. And this, I suppose, is not so bad at all. Indeed, in order to maintain harmony between a calm state of mind and good physical health, sometimes you need to be able to pamper yourself. delicious food while maintaining a reasonable measure.
As for chicken legs, despite the high fat content of this type of meat, it can nevertheless bring our body a lot of benefits, being a source of valuable animal protein and essential amino acids, as well as easily digestible iron, magnesium and various B vitamins. If you want to reduce the fat and calorie content of this dish and get the most out of it possible benefits, then before cooking the legs should be completely cleaned of the skin and do not fry them first in oil. However, a little quality vegetable oil, such as olive oil, does not hurt at all when preparing a fragrant onion sauce.
First of all, the legs must be marinated (however, any other part of the carcass can be used). For the marinade, mix together squeezed juice from three oranges (just cut the fourth into circles), crushed garlic, honey, olive oil and all spices (salt, pepper, curry):
If curry is not available, it can be replaced with a mixture of coriander and turmeric. Dip the chicken legs into the resulting liquid and put them in the refrigerator for at least an hour so that they marinate well:
After an hour, we take the legs out of the refrigerator and lay them out on a baking sheet lined with baking paper or a silicone mat. It is better to take a deeper pan, because. pour all the remaining marinade onto the legs. On top of each leg we put a circle of orange and on top of everything we lay out the red onion slices:
We send this entire structure to an oven preheated to 200 degrees and cook the legs for 40-50 minutes. At the same time, every ten minutes we take the chicken out of the oven and pour it with the resulting juice.
The best side dish is rice and white wine.
I read a recipe in a magazine by accident. As it turned out, it is extremely simple and fast, but tasty and quite original.
I think it will suit anyone who loves chicken legs. Although, for sure, something similar can be done with chicken breasts. The meat should be soft and melt in your mouth :)
But I'm a big fan of the legs, well, and, in fact, in the original recipe it was exactly like that.
You will need:
- 8 chicken drumsticks
- 250 ml orange juice
- a tablespoon of honey
- a couple of tangerines or 1 large orange
- 2 onions
- 3-4 garlic cloves
- salt, pepper, herbs
1. Cooking legs. Mine and put on a baking sheet. 
2. For orange marinade sauce, take orange juice ... 
3. ...and mix it with honey, salt and pepper. Warm up the marinade in the microwave. 
4. Cut the onion into slices. 
5. Pour the chicken with warm marinade and let stand for 15-20 minutes. 
6. In the meantime, crush the garlic. 
7. Put the onion with crushed garlic in the chicken marinated with juice. 
8. Orange-mandarin sliced \u200b\u200bis there. And sprinkle with herbs. Salt, pepper the chicken and send for 50 minutes in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. 
9. A couple of times while the chicken was in the oven, I took it out and turned it over. 
10. You can serve with boiled rice, which would be nice to pour with chicken orange sauce. 
