Southwest Buttermilk Baked Chicken
The most flavorful chicken you will ever make, baked to absolute crisp-tender, juicy perfection! 207 calories each.
So with all these Thanksgiving recipes I’ve been posting lately, I figured a little break might be a nice refresher. After all, weeknight meals are still needed in the midst of this holiday mayhem, right?
That’s where this chicken comes in. Crisp-tender chicken thighs, baked to absolute perfection.
And with just a few spices, these chicken thighs are packed with tons of flavor, baked in its own juices with that creamy buttermilk.
You’d be amazed as to how such simple ingredients can transform a chicken dish like this.
I honestly didn’t expect much out of it but boy was I wrong. Jason had to beg me for days to make it again the very next week!
Southwest Buttermilk Baked Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- In a small bowl, combine cumin, paprika, chili powder, oregano, garlic powder and onion powder; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Season chicken thighs with spice mixture, rubbing in thoroughly on all sides.
- Melt butter in a large oven-proof skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken, skin-side down, and sear both sides until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes per side. Remove from heat and stir in buttermilk.
- Place into oven and roast until completely cooked through, reaching an internal temperature of 175 degrees F, about 25-30 minutes.
- Serve chicken immediately, garnished with cilantro, if desired.
Did you make this recipe?
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Looking forward to a sauce but the buttermilk curdled.
What side dishes should you serve with this chicken?
My absolute favorite side dish is the garlic parmesan roasted potatoes. But please feel free to check out all of my side dish recipes here.
Can you use this recipe in a slow cooker?
It is very difficult to give exact conversion information to translate a traditional stovetop recipe to be used in a slow cooker without further recipe testing. However, here is an article worth checking out on a possible conversion guide. Hope that helps!
As quite a few people have stated above, the buttermilk curdled. While it ended up tasting pretty good, it looked a little yucky to serve. Chungah, any thoughts on how to prevent this curdling since so many are having this same issue with this recipe?
Lois, your heat source may have been set too high. It is best to remove the pan from the heat in its entirety before adding the buttermilk.
This recipe looks amazing and I can not wait to try it; thank you so much for sharing.
On the buttermilk issue that some of the folks have had. I would think it be treated just like adding raw egg and it might be tempered and also using more room temp buttermilk, instead of straight out of the fridge, too. We do not buy normal buttermilk but buttermilk is a staple in my kitchen. I use the powdered buttermilk with great success. It has a very long shelf life and I stretch that even further by keeping the container in the freezer or fridge, as well. The concept is the same as regular powdered milk- add water and you have buttermilk from the powder.
Can not wait to try to recipe, thank you again.
Do you bake it covered or uncovered?
Nope – no cover needed here.
That is a weapons-grade amount of cumin!!
Ha. I love Cumin but as with any recipe you make it your own with tweaks unique to your palate.
Hi there! Firstly, let me say that I’ve made quite a few of your recipes, mostly with fantastic results. Thank you for sharing!
However, I did have some issues with the sauce in this recipe. Basically, the buttermilk curdled and created a sort of chunky cheese that separated from the chicken fat that was released as the dish cooked. I followed the recipe to the letter, so I’m not quite sure what the issue could have been. Do you have any suggestions on how I could fix this? Thanks!
Jesse, there’s many reasons why the buttermilk could have curdled, but it may be best to remove the pan from the heat source in its entirety before adding in the buttermilk.
Made this tonight for dinner. The family loved it. We all went back for more…no left overs tonight. That’s a success in my book. I paired it with garlic penne pasta, which I found both recipes on Pinterest and both were great. Thanks for the recipe, it’s getting added to the normal rotation.
Hi!
Love your recipes. I make them all the time and my husband loves them all.
I do not have an oven safe pan and planning to make this tomorrow..what can I do or use to have this recipe come out the best it can?
Thanks!
I am so happy to hear that you and your husband have been enjoying my recipes 🙂
If you do not have an oven-proof skillet, I recommend transferring the chicken to a baking dish and going from there. Hope that helps!
I was wondering how much chicken (in weight) you recommend for this recipe? I’m ordering my groceries online so I need to know how much to order.
Chicken thighs can range in size, but for typical grocery store brands, four bone-in, skin-on thighs will weigh about 1.5 pounds.
HI Chungah! Just wanted to say I enjoy your blog! To answer a question some readers had: Adding the cold buttermilk to the hot pan with the melted butter can throw off the emulsion and cause it to break. It’s perfectly normal and will not affect the flavor or quality of the dish. Thanks for sharing all your recipes!
I want to use bone in chicken breast what would be the cook time on that
Without further recipe testing, I cannot advise on the appropriate cooking time. Please use your best judgment to ensure that the chicken is completely cooked through as it should reach a temperature of 165 degrees F.
Made this tonight…7 teenagers and my wife all loved it.
The buttermilk curdled almost as soon as I poured it in. I could not make a sauce or gravy with the juices. The chicken was fine, but do you have any suggestions why it would do that?
Sumati, your heat source may have been set too high. It is best to remove the pan from the heat in its entirety before adding the buttermilk.
Tried this tonight and loved it! I cooked it in a cast iron pan and it came out great. I also added fresh garlic instead of powder and eliminated the cumin, health or no health, it’s my least favorite spice :-). Delish!
This recipe sounds terrific but I’m wondering if I could use yogurt instead of the buttermilk? Thanks!
You can certainly try substituting yogurt but without further recipe testing, I cannot speak for how much this will change the overall taste/texture of the dish. It is always best to use the ingredients listed in the recipe to obtain the best results possible.
I’ve made three of your recipes in the last month & everyone in my family has loved them! Can’t wait to try this!
Hi! I love the spice mix for this and it really smells delicious. I am baking it in the oven right now. However, I encountered a problem with the recipe. Everything was fine up until the point I attempted to pour cold buttermilk into frying-hot oil. Good thing I did not pour all of it in!! I am sending this dish to a family for a MealTrain meal since a the wife is having an operation, so I could not send it in the iron skillet that I browned the chicken in. As I browned it I removed it to a disposable aluminum pan in which to bake and send it. So all that was in the pan when I added the buttermilk was all the REALLY hot oil, from the butter and from the chicken itself. And there was a lot of oil! I added the buttermilk after removing from the heat and there was a big reaction because of the hot oil. It sizzled and splattered in a scary way. So I waited about 10 minutes until the hot oil cooled and then added the rest of the buttermilk. The buttermilk immediately turned into oily curds and didn’t mix at all with the oil. So I ended up adding another cup of buttermilk over the chicken in the aluminum pan and baking it that way. It looks great! Just wondering what went wrong with what I did in the first place. I did leave the skin on, but trimmed off the large globs of fat along the sides of the thighs so it would be less oily, but it still produced a LOT of oil.
It seems like your pan was really, really hot! That being said, I think the biggest issue here is that your heat source was set too high.
Hi Chungah!
This is the second recipe of yours(first was the amazing Firecracker chicken!) I have made and it is currently in the oven, though I have to agree with the people above, the dairy and fat are separating as soon as hitting the pan(upon adding), with the fresh buttermilk curdling. I was cooking it on medium high heat as suggested so I’m really not sure why this happened.
Any tips?
Jenna, there’s many reasons why the buttermilk could have curdled, but it may be best to remove the pan from the heat source in its entirety before adding in the buttermilk.