This Roasted Chicken Drumsticks with Potatoes is a classic Mediterranean one pan baked dish. It makes for a great family meal, you can bake almost two full meals at once and the dish is pretty economical. It used to be my favorite Sunday meal:). In my native country of Albania we simply called this dish ‘tavë me patate dhe pulë‘.
Chicken Drumsticks
Chicken drumsticks or chicken thighs are the best cut for this dish. I wouldn’t recommend chicken breast for this specific casserole. The drumsticks are inexpensive and also don’t dry up too much. The dish needs to bake until potatoes are ready as they take the longest, so chicken drumsticks nestled in between potatoes can handle being baked for longer.
There are two main methods of cooking this dish. In the recipe card, I wrote the one that is the most convenient to me. However, if you’re curious I’ll explain below how most people cook this dish.
- Boil chicken drumsticks, roast them separately. Use the chicken stock from boiling the drumsticks, add the stock on the potatoes, start roasting them and add the drumsticks over potatoes during the last 10 minutes of baking.
- My method (explained in detail in recipe card below) – marinate chicken drumsticks, add chicken to baking dish, cover with potatoes, pour marinade on top plus chicken stock (either store bought or homemade), roast together until potatoes are done.
Prepping the Dish for Baking
If I break down the process of baking this dish, we need to focus on the prepping part. I usually do it in this order.
- Marinate the Chicken Drumsticks
- Peel the potatoes, place them in water so they don’t brown.
- Cut the potatoes, place them in a colander.
- Arrange the marinated chicken drumsticks in the baking dish
- Add the cut potatoes all around
- Pour the marinade on top. Add chicken stock.
- Adjust for more salt or herbs if needed.
- Bake
How to Serve This Dish?
Ok I’ll share how we serve this dish. There are two main ways to serve it.
- Start with soup (usually Chicken Rice Lemon soup), then serve the roasted drumsticks with potatoes and a green salad. This is usually a bigger meal, dinner type or when you have guests over.
- Just the casserole and a green salad as the picture below. Usually that’s a regular dinner for us as a family.
Salad is pretty simple usually as it’s supposed to compliment the main meal. Main ingredients are lettuce (or spring mix), green onions, olives, lemon juice, olive oil and salt. If you don’t have freshly squeezed lemon juice, use red wine vinegar. It’s important to use a simple dressing or oil/vinegar or oil/lemon juice as the acid balances out the flavors of the baked chicken/potatoes. Don’t use a sweet dressing or cream based dressing as it doesn’t go well with the potatoes/chicken dish.
Tips & Notes
This one pan, oven baked potatoes and chicken drumsticks is a very simple dish. Well, that’s what I think now that I have a family of my own. But when I was a teenager and helping out with lunch at home, I often burned or didn’t cook it long enough.
Here are some tips that might help you if you’re making this dish for the first time.
- Baking dish – I’m using a 15 inch diameter round baking dish (deep). This allows enough space for few lbs of potatoes, plus 8 drumsticks nestled in between potatoes instead of laying them on top. I always try to use a big enough dish to make 2 meals out of this recipe.
- Herbs – since this is a Mediterranean casserole, I obviously use common herbs such as oregano, parsley, marjoram, rosemary, thyme etc. You can adjust the quantities to your taste, feel free to experiment:).
- Chicken stock – use store bought or homemade chicken stock. I usually use a whole chicken and make chicken stock for soups and store it in my freezer. So I always have some on hand. For this dish, I tend to use about 8 ozs of chicken stock.
- Variations – you can add carrots if you have less potatoes that what you need. Carrots add great flavor to this dish. You can also make a similar dish with lamb instead of chicken.
- Potatoes – I love using Gold potatoes and in their absence Russet potatoes. Timing of baking this dish depends a lot on how thin or thick you cut the potatoes. Monitor closely after the first 30 minutes.
Roasted Chicken Drumsticks and Potatoes
Equipment
- 1 14 inch round baking dish
Ingredients
- 8 drumsticks
- 5 lbs potatoes Gold or Russet
- 3 tbsps olive oil extra virgin
- 1 tbsp parsley
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp marjoram
- 0.5 tsp black pepper add more to taste
- 0.5 tbsp coarse sea salt
- 8 ozs chicken stock
- 1 rosemary twig (garnish)
- 1 lemon
- 0.5 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Squeeze 1 lemon. Set the lemon juice aside.
- Marinate thawed chicken drumsticks in a bowl with olive oil, lemon juice, coarse sea salt, dry parsley, dry marjoram, oregano, paprika, black pepper. Cover in plastic wrap and store in refrigerator.
- Peel potatoes and place in a big bowl with water. This prevents the potatoes from browning. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Cut potatoes as shown in pictures and drain them.
- Add chicken drumsticks on a baking dish. Add cut potatoes on top and in between. Pour the marinade over the potatoes and chicken. Finally add chicken stock all over. Add some sea salt over potatoes. Add more herbs if you like the potatoes very flavorful. Finally add the rosemary twig not only as garnish on top but for aroma as well.
- Bake dish for about 45 minutes. Baking time can vary on oven and type of potatoes. Chicken will cook before the potatoes, so your variable here is the potatoes. Dish is usually fully baked once you can pierce easily the potatoes and the top ones are getting a golden brown color.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please save it in your boards in Pinterest. Let me know in comments if you made this recipe or if you have any questions:). Feel free to tag me in social media with your rendition of this baked dish.
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Other Baked Family Style Casseroles
- Old fashioned Baked Rice and Chicken Drumsticks
- Roasted Cornish Hens and Potatoes
- Roasted Rosemary Potatoes
- Stuffed Peppers
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