Hot Mama’s Kickin’ Italian Chicken is one of my favorite go-to recipes for weeknight meals. It’s fast, easy, and healthy. It’s also completely customizable and pretty darn cost-efficient too. Both of my kids love it, which is a feat to accomplish. Our picky eaters don’t really like the “kick”, so we just omit the pepper from the recipe on their pieces of chicken.

My family prefers to buy bulk food items and we store them in our chest freezer until we need them. Chicken is no different. For the time being, we’ve been buying our chicken thighs at Costco and splitting up the packs. I find that works really well. It really gives us the most bang for our buck.

You can buy whatever brand chicken works for you, but its really important that you buy your thighs with the skin on. If you buy skinless thighs, you WILL regret it. Your chicken will dry out and your kickin’ italian chicken will have no life in it. It will not be pleasant.

One final thing that I think I should mention: this recipe is unconventional.

No, not just in name, but in portions. You see, when I cook I often don’t measure. Weird, I know. But with this recipe in particular, I make it “to taste”. So if you like garlic, you can go a little heavy on the garlic powder, it’s okay. If you don’t, maybe do just a little pinch. The only thing I really recommend is going easy on the salt and optional black pepper. It’s very easy to add too much. Try adding just very small amounts before baking—you can always add more after it’s done cooking.

So, without further ado, here is my Hot Mama’s Kickin’ Italian Chicken.