Best Baked Chicken Legs (get PDF)

 Adapted from recipe by Melissa Griffiths -Bless this Mess, thank you Melissa!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 pounds chicken legs (about 10 legs)
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup soy sauce (I highly recommend Datu Puti brand for all of your soy sauce needs. You'll never use regular soy sauce again!)
1/4 cup ketchup
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large jalapeno pepper, diced
8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/4 tblsp freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Lay the chicken legs out in a foil-lined baking dish with high sides (the foil is to make clean up easier — it’s not essential but helps.) Select an apporpriate baking dish so the chicken will be half out of the sauce when combined. I found a 10" x 14" Pyrex baking dish was perfect. I lined it with foil the first time I made it, but have since found that first spraying the Pyrex dish with non-stick cooking spray and baking without the foil worked out much better, and cleanup was very easy.

3. In a glass mixing bowl, mix all of the ingredients above (minus the chicken) and stir well. If the sauce doesn’t combine well, microwave it on high for 30 seconds and stir again.

4. Pour the sauce over the chicken legs, distributing the mushroom slices fairly evenly throughout the dish. With a spoon, make sure all of the chicken has been coated with sauce. At this time the sauce will be runny.

5. When the oven has reached temperature, put the chicken legs in the oven (middle rack) and bake for 45 minutes.

6. After 45 minutes, take the chicken out of the oven, and rotate it so that the bottom that was in the sauce is now on top, out of the sauce. Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees. When the oven has reached temperature, put the chicken back in and bake until the sauce is bubbly and starts to caramelize on the chicken legs, about 15 minutes.

7. After 15 minutes, I rotated the chicken once more, and baked another 5 minutes. I did this to get some carmalization on as much of the chicken as possible, as the hot sauce is sill runny. This step is not necessary.

8. Remove the chicken from the oven, and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving. The longer it sits, the thicker the sauce will get.

Notes:
For safety, the internal temperature should be at least 165 degrees.
Do not use too large of a pan or dish as the sauce will spread out too much and burn.
I've made this several times now due to demand! It's that good. I also accumulate an over abundance of chicken legs when they go on sale, and always buy the big package, so they are perfect for this recipe.
I forgot to take a picture of the chicken in the baking dish, so you'll have to be satisfied with one in the left-overs container.