French Onion Chicken Thighs

A skillet chicken thighs dinner loaded with all the flavors of French onion soup! Topped with caramelized red onions and extra Gruyere cheese for the perfect savory bite.

While many of my dinner recipes are perfect for weeknight cooking, this is not one of them. You’re going to need a solid hour for getting this on the table and between caramelizing the onions, browning the chicken, and cooking the orzo there’s just way too much involved for me to make this on a weeknight! Don’t let that scare you away though! Just plan to make this for a comforting Sunday dinner when you have a little extra time to spend in the kitchen. This is SO good and savory so all the time is worth it!

INGREDIENTS AND SUPPLIES

Here’s what you’ll need to get this French onion chicken dinner on the table this weekend.

DRY INGREDIENTS

• Boneless skinless chicken thighs.
• Seasonings: Garlic powder, chicken bouillon powder, dried thyme, salt, pepper.
• All purpose flour.
• Orzo.
• Garlic cloves.
• Gruyere cheese. You’ll find this in the specialty cheese display of your grocery store.
• Butter.
• Sugar.

WET INGREDIENTS

• Olive oil.
• Chicken broth.
• Sherry cooking wine. I just use the cooking wine from the grocery store.
• Worcestershire sauce.

KITCHEN SUPPLIES

• Digital meat thermometer. I always recommend checking the temperature of the chicken to really make sure you’ve hit 165 degrees!
• Cast iron skillet or other oven safe skillet.
• Dutch oven. For caramelizing the red onions.
• Box grater. You’ll need this to shred the Gruyere.

CARAMELIZING RED ONIONS

I have a whole post about how to caramelize red onions, but I’ll keep it a little shorter here. While I like to use red onions, you can use yellow onions if you’d prefer.

STEP 1. Slice the onions. I like to go quite thin with my onions to really get them nice and caramelized and browned.

STEP 2. Melt the butter and oil together in the Dutch oven.

Step 3. Add the onions and cook for 40-45 minutes, alternating between low and medium-low heat and stirring frequently. The longer you let them cook the deeper the color you’ll get. I find that around 45 minutes is the sweet spot for me but you could cook these on low for 50-60 minutes. Once the onions are cooked, remove them to a plate and you’re ready to use them in your recipe!

For me the real magic starts to happen after 30 minutes. You’ll see around the 15 minute mark the onions are soft and translucent. After 30 minutes you should have some nice browning and fond at the bottom of the Dutch oven. I cooked my onions for 45 minutes to get a deep brown color.

WHAT TO SERVE WITH FRENCH ONION CHICKEN THIGHS

I love this dinner because you’ve got your chicken and pasta all cooking together in one skillet. Since this recipe takes about an hour to make, I recommend keeping any additional sides very simple. You could try:

• Frozen broccoli.
• Frozen green beans.
• Bagged Caesar salad.
• Creamed spinach.

STORAGE AND REHEATING

Store any leftovers in food containers in the fridge for up to 4 days for best freshness and flavors.

To reheat, I like to cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces so it doesn’t dry out. You can microwave the leftovers for a super quick lunch, or if you have a little more time you can reheat it on the stove with a little dash of chicken broth to bring back some moisture to the pasta and chicken.

For more baked chicken and pasta dinners, check out these recipes!

Chicken and orzo pasta bake
Chicken pesto pasta bake

And for more French onion inspired dishes, here are some tasty recipes to try!

French onion burgers
French onion grilled cheese
French onion pasta

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