Big-batch recipe · All meat
Roast chicken thighs in their own fat
6 portions, about 38 g of protein in each. 5 minutes of hands-on work and 45 min of cooking.
Where it sits in the week
What this one is for
On the all meat track this is a Sunday cook — the long session, which covers Monday to Wednesday. Cooked once, portioned hot, and eaten across the days that session covers — on the seven-day plan it turns up at Monday dinner and Thursday lunch.
Two portions is about 76 g of protein — our own arithmetic on the figure above, not a separate measurement. Protein targets on this site are computed against goal weight or lean mass rather than scale weight, which is the whole of Real Fuel.
Part of the all meat meal plan, cooked in the two-session prep schedule.
What goes in
- 12 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 2 tbsp salt
- Beef tallow or reserved fat, if the tray needs it
How
- Dry the skin completely with paper towel and salt it heavily. Wet skin steams instead of crisping, and this dish has nothing else to hide behind.
- Skin-up on a tray with a little tallow if the thighs are lean, though most are not.
- 425F for 40 to 45 minutes, untouched. The fat that renders out is not waste to pour off — it is most of the calories in the dish.
- Rest 5 minutes in the tray juices before serving.
Keeping it: Fridge 4 days, freezer 3 months. Reheat in the oven or a dry pan, never the microwave, or the skin turns to rubber.
Nothing on this page is medical advice. It is a plan written for general strength training in healthy adults, and any condition or medication you are managing outranks it.
Doing it cheaper
Swaps that apply to this one
From the all meat track's budget version, filtered to the ingredients this recipe actually uses.
| Instead of | Use | Why it is worth it |
|---|---|---|
| Steak and ground beef | Chuck, shoulder, brisket point, pork shoulder | Long-cooked cheap cuts eat better than a mid-grade steak and cost a third as much. |
| Chicken breast | Whole chickens at $2.01 a pound | Roughly four times the protein per dollar of ground beef, and the carcass makes the broth. |
The prices behind these swaps, with sources, are in the protein-per-dollar table.
The rest of the all meat week
3 more big-batch recipes on this track, plus the seven-day plan they feed.