Herbed Chicken Quarters
Gluten Free Living – 2025
Herbed Chicken Quarters is a healthy, low calorie recipe using fresh herbs, lemons, garlic and a pinch of cayenne pepper as a marinade for the chicken. After the chicken has marinated for a day, you toss it on the grill and cook over a low heat until the chicken is cooked through. For those looking for healthy diet options that don’t break the bank or take forever and a day to cook, this is a fantastic option for you.
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In early 2024 after I had cleaned out my freezers from all the cookies for our year end cookie extravaganza in 2023, I restocked my freezers with meat. Steaks and hamburger patties, boneless chicken breasts, chicken thighs, chicken leg quarters, chicken wings and chicken legs filled my freezers. I also included the healthiest, minimally processed, kielbasa and sausage I could find. Every week or two I would grab up all of the sale items at HEB and continue filling up my freezers for the year.
Back in May 2024, I pulled out these chicken leg quarters and started hunting for a recipe to use them up. I found this one along with a Honey Roasted Chicken and served both with a Mandarin Cashew Tossed Salad. The chicken was delightful and just as good reheated.
I’m always on the lookout for healthy dinner options, especially entrees and veggies we can grill. About every two weeks, my husband grills up five or six different veggies: any kind of squash, corn on the cob, green beans, asparagus, potatoes, rutabagas….You name it and we grill it. We also grill peaches, nectarines, plums of various kinds and pineapple. Daily for lunch I pull out some of these goodies and reheat them with the meat of the week.
It gives me healthy lunch or dinner options, and I don’t have to cook every day! (How’s that for someone who “Can’t Stay Out of the Kitchen?”) The marinade for Herbed Chicken Quarters can be whipped up in just a few minutes and then stored in the refrigerator until you’re ready to grill the meat. Don’t feel like grilling? Then shake off the marinade, put the meat in a baking dish and bake about an hour or so at 350 degrees, until the chicken tests done. Easy, Peasy. 🙂
Herbed Chicken Quarters are so easy to whip up for weeknight dinners.
The chicken is marinated in fresh thyme, basil, garlic and lemons and then allowed to marinate 24 hours before tossing on the grill.
I served the chicken with Mandarin Cashew Tossed Salad. Yum.
Here’s what I did.
I used these ingredients.
If desired, skin the chicken quarters.
Place on a plate temporarily (I actually skinned one batch and left the skin on the second batch).
Mince garlic; set aside.
Wash herbs; dry thoroughly; mince.
Quarter the lemons. You don’t have to remove the seeds because when you drain the marinade from the chicken, they’ll come off anyway.
Combine oil, lemons, garlic, basil, thyme, sea salt, cayenne pepper and chicken leg quarters in a large zip lock bag. Seal bag; turn over several times to mix the ingredients. Store in refrigerate for about 24 hours. Turn ingredients over in bag a few times during the marinade process.
Remove chicken from bag and discard marinade.
Grill over low to medium heat (covered). Turn chicken pieces every 15 minutes.
Grill approximately 30-60 minutes until chicken tests done when priced with a fork or knife (and reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees).
Transfer chicken leg quarters to a serving dish to serve.
Oregano and thyme along with garlic, lemon and a teensy bit of cayenne pepper season these Herbed Chicken Quarters wonderfully.
Chicken Leg Quarters can sometimes be picked up very inexpensively at the grocery store. If you don’t mind eating dark meat, this is a great dinner option.
I think smoking the Herbed Chicken Quarters or grilling it provides awesome flavor.
Here’s the recipe.
HERBED CHICKEN QUARTERS
(Recipe adapted from Taste of Home, Annual Recipes, 2001, pg. 89)
Herbed Chicken Quarters
Equipment
- 1 gas grill or electric or charcoal grill
- 1 large zip lock bag or two bags, if necessary
- 1 sharp knife
- 1 cutting board
- measuring cups
- measuring spoons
Ingredients
- 4 medium lemons quartered
- 1/2 cup avocado oil or olive oil
- 8 cloves garlic finely minced
- 4 tsp. fresh basil minced
- 2 tsp. fresh thyme minced
- 2 tsp. sea salt
- 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
- 3 1/2 lbs. chicken leg quarters
Instructions
- Wedge lemons; remove seeds, if desired.
- Gently squeeze lemon juice from lemons into a large gallon-size resealable bag.
- Leave lemon wedges in the bag.
- Add avocado oil, garlic, basil, thyme, salt and cayenne pepper.
- Add the chicken pieces; seal bag; turn the bag to coat.
- Refrigerate bag for 24 hours, turning frequently so the chicken gets good coverage.
- Drain and discard any marinade.
- Grill chicken over low to medium heat with grill covered.
- Turn chicken every 15 minutes.
- Grill for approximately 30 minutes to one hour or until juices run clear.
Notes
Recipe adapted from Taste of Home.
Taste of Home no longer has a search engine that allows you to search recipes by title. Most of the time, you have to weed through thousands of recipes in collections. If any link is to be found, I find direct links through google, not their own website. I could not locate a direct page for this recipe. But it is in the cookbook noted above.© Can’t Stay Out of the Kitchen
Nutrition
This is a terrific dinner entree for weeknight dinners. But this chicken reheats well and can be served for lunches or dinners later in the week too.
Herbed Chicken Quarters are healthy, low calorie and gluten free. Remember that most of the olive oil (or avocado oil) is poured off with the marinade so the recipe will actually have lower calories than calculated below.
Herbed Chicken Quarters are marvelous served with Mandarin Cashew Tossed Salad for dinner!
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Herbed Chicken with Roasted Garlic
