Sheet-Pan Soy Sauce Chicken and Broccoli
Deeply flavorful chicken thighs and meltingly tender broccoli, cooked on the same sheet-pan.
Whenever I make a sheet-pan recipe, I have two goals.
Both the main protein and the side vegetable cook at the same time, on the same sheet-pan, making it easy to cook dinner.
Fewer dirty dishes, making it easier to clean-up after dinner.
This recipe accomplishes both of these things, PLUS delivering really flavorful chicken and broccoli that turn crispy and caramelized after soaking in a soy sauce and brown sugar marinade.
This soy sauce chicken is really delicious, but honestly, the broccoli is my favorite part. It’s browned around the edges and meltingly tender, especially if you use bone-in chicken thighs that require a longer cooking time.
I have been known to stand in the kitchen, plucking hot florets of broccoli right off the sheet-pan so they don’t even have a chance to make it to the table.
While your chicken and broccoli roast in the oven, I recommend cooking a batch of rice to round out the meal. Or, angel hair pasta lightly coated in oil or butter is good too.
This meal is also quite good cold, making it a good option for lunch the next day.
Sheet-Pan Soy Sauce Chicken and Broccoli
Servings: 4 to 6 people, depending on how many chicken thighs you cook
Cooking Method: Roasting
Approximate Total Cooking Time: 15 minutes of prep work, PLUS you need to marinate the chicken for at least 4 hours or overnight. The chicken and broccoli roast for between 25 to 45 minutes, depending on if you use boneless or bone-in thighs.
A printer-friendly version of this recipe can be found at the end of this post.
Ingredients
4 to 8 skin-on chicken thighs, either boneless or bone-in
2 large heads of broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Instructions
In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and garlic.
Pour the marinade over the chicken, either in a shallow dish or a large Ziploc bag. Flip the chicken over a few times to make sure both sides are coated in marinade.
Marinate the chicken overnight, or at least 4 hours. If possible, flip the thighs at least once while they marinate.
When you’re ready to cook dinner, heat the oven to 425 F. Cover 2 large rimmed sheet-pans in foil (soy sauce can really stick and burn to pans!)
Spread the broccoli florets out evenly over the two pans. Coat the broccoli lightly with olive oil. Don’t season the broccoli with salt (the marinade will also flavor the broccoli and make it salty, so wait until after everything cooks to taste the broccoli and add more salt as needed).
Use tongs to lift each piece of chicken out of the marinade and shake the marinade off a little bit. Arrange the chicken thighs on each sheet-pan in-between the broccoli florets. Spread the chicken thighs out evenly on both sheet-pans. (discard leftover marinade)
Bake for about 25 minutes (boneless chicken thighs) or about 40 minutes (bone-in thighs).
If you want more browning, you can place each sheet-pan under the broiler for a few minutes at the end. Keep a close eye on your dinner so it doesn’t burn! (and don’t do this if you have parchment on the sheet-pans instead of foil, or the parchment might catch on fire)
Taste the broccoli before serving and add salt if needed.
How Do I Know When the Chicken Thighs are Done?
Chicken thighs are fully cooked when a digital thermometer inserted into the middle of the thigh reads at least 165F. However, they often taste better and are more tender when cooked longer, so the internal temp is between 175F to 195F. That’s the great things about dark meat, you don’t have to worry as much about over-cooking it. This article from America’s Test Kitchen explains why cooking chicken thighs longer is better.
Bone-in or Boneless?
I vote for bone-in thighs because they’re more flavorful and juicy. But boneless is fine too. This chicken really does taste better with skin-on thighs because the skin soaks up the marinade, gets caramelized in the oven, and keeps the chicken extra tender and moist.
