in our effort to be more healthy

My cousin introduced me to Cooking Light magazine and we received our first issue this past month. The first time flipping through the magazine this recipe stood out to me as something to try, and we were not at all disappointed.

Spicy Honey-Brushed Chicken Thighs

2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
8 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
Cooking spray
6 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons cider vinegar

Preheat broiler.

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. Add chicken to bowl; toss to coat. Place chicken on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Broil chicken 5 minutes on each side.

Combine honey and vinegar in a small bowl, stirring well. Remove chicken from oven; brush 1/4 cup honey mixture on chicken. Broil 1 minute. Remove chicken from oven and turn over. Brush chicken with remaining honey mixture. Broil 1 additional minute or until chicken is done.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 2 chicken thighs)

Changes we made: I misread the recipe (looking at the yield instead of the ingredients) and only used 4 chicken thighs, but Somebody liked having the extra seasoning on the chicken, and 4 pieces was all we needed for dinner, so I would probably do the full seasoning with half the chicken again. Also, we used thighs with bones and skins, because Somebody likes them like that and because they are cheaper to buy. We found we had to broil them almost twice the suggested time to cook all the way through. Also, we used garlic salt because that was what we had on hand, and omitted the salt. Oh, and I coated the chicken with the spices by putting them all in a Ziploc bag and tossing it around. I would also suggest that if your broiler pan is like mine and is two pieces, you put a piece of foil down on the lower half so that all the drippings land on the foil and you don’t have to scrape them off the pan later. It just makes a good dinner better when clean-up only takes three minutes.

We loved this. Seriously, we loved this. It had great flavor but wasn’t “spicy” for me. If you want extra heat I suggest you use some red pepper flakes. It was a super fast dinner (less than half an hour from start to finish) and used ingredients we have on hand all the time. Definitely a keeper.