Recipes › Parsley › Gremolata Butter Roast Chicken Thighs with White Beans
Gremolata Butter Roast Chicken Thighs with White Beans
Gremolata — the classic Italian combination of parsley, lemon zest and garlic — is here worked into softened butter and pushed under the skin of bone-in chicken thighs before roasting. As the fat renders, it bastes the meat with herby, citrus-sharp butter, leaving you with burnished, crisp-skinned chicken sitting on a bed of creamy white beans that have absorbed all the cooking juices. It is straightforwardly brilliant.
Parsley is in season now. More parsley recipes, or see what to sow this month where you are.
Ingredients
- 50 g flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, very finely chopped
- 80 g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 lemon, zested and juiced
- 4 garlic cloves, 2 finely grated for the butter, 2 finely sliced for the beans
- 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 2 tsp flaky sea salt
- 1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 800 g tinned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (2 x 400g tins)butter beans work equally well
- 300 ml chicken stock
- 100 ml dry white winereplace with an extra 100ml stock if preferred
- 6 fresh thyme, sprigs
Contains: milk, sulphites.
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C fan. In a small bowl, mix the softened butter with the finely chopped parsley, the zest of both lemons, the grated garlic, 1 tsp salt and plenty of black pepper until well combined.About 4 min
- Pat the chicken thighs dry with kitchen paper. Using your fingers, carefully loosen the skin from each thigh without tearing it. Push a generous teaspoon of the gremolata butter under the skin of each thigh, then press down on the skin to spread it evenly. Rub any remaining butter over the outside of the skin.About 8 min
- Heat the olive oil in a large ovenproof roasting tin or wide casserole over a medium-high heat on the hob. Season the chicken thighs with the remaining salt, then sear skin-side down for 4 minutes until golden. You may need to do this in two batches. Turn and sear the flesh side for 2 minutes. Remove the chicken and set aside.About 10 min
- Reduce the heat to medium. Add the sliced garlic to the tin and fry for 1 minute, then pour in the white wine. Let it bubble and reduce for 2 minutes, scraping up any browned bits from the base.About 3 min
- Add the drained cannellini beans, chicken stock and thyme sprigs. Stir together, then nestle the seared chicken thighs skin-side up on top of the beans. The skin should sit above the liquid line.About 2 min
- Transfer to the oven and roast for 35 minutes until the skin is deep golden and crisp and the chicken juices run clear when pierced at the thickest point. A probe thermometer should read 75°C at the centre.About 35 min
- Remove from the oven. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the whole dish. Taste the beans and adjust seasoning. Serve straight from the tin with good bread or a simple green salad.
Tips
- The butter must be genuinely soft — not melted, not fridge-cold — otherwise it will tear the skin when you try to spread it underneath.
- Make sure the chicken skin is sitting proud of the liquid before it goes in the oven. If the skin sits in the stock it will steam rather than crisp.
- Any leftover gremolata butter keeps in the fridge for 5 days and is exceptional melted over steamed new potatoes or stirred into pasta.
Ring the changes
- Use the same gremolata butter on a whole spatchcocked chicken — rub it all over and under the breast skin and roast at 200°C fan for 45 minutes.
- Swap the cannellini beans for 600g of halved cherry tomatoes and 200g of pitted green olives for a punchier, more summery version.
Keeping it
Leftovers keep in the fridge for 3 days in an airtight container. Reheat covered in the oven at 170°C fan for 20 minutes until piping hot throughout. The beans soak up more liquid overnight and taste even better the next day.
In the app this recipe finds you
Log what you've picked and GrowMore CookMore matches it to 1,918 more recipes like this one, tells you what's ready before the frost gets it, and keeps the freezer honest. Free to start.
More from the same crop
A bright, intensely green pesto built entirely around a generous heap of fresh parsley, blitzed with toasted walnuts, capers, garlic, and lemon. It coats pasta in minutes and tastes far more sophisticated than the effort involved. This is the dish to make when your parsley is bolting and you need to use the whole plant.
22 min · easy · ParsleyKuku sabzi is an Iranian herb frittata where the herbs are not a seasoning — they are the filling. The egg is almost incidental, just enough to hold together a dense, dark-green slab of fresh parsley, dill, and spring onions, fragrant with dried fenugreek and warm spice. It is eaten at Persian New Year for good luck, but it deserves a place on your table all summer long.
50 min · medium · ParsleyA vivid, intensely green soup that lets a full bunch of fresh parsley do all the talking. Sharp lemon and a little potato give it body without dulling the herb's grassy brightness. It is the kind of thing you make when your parsley plants are threatening to bolt and you want something genuinely impressive on the table in under an hour.
45 min · easy · Parsley
Allotment keeper in the North East of England, the voice behind the Tony C Smith YouTube channel, and the gardener who built GrowMore CookMore. Club numbers on this page update as members log their plots. Last updated 4 April 2026.