Switch up your regular chicken dinner routine with this Jamaican-inspired paleo Roasted Jerk Chicken Thighs with Sweet Potatoes! The trick is to cook a pan of vegetables under the chicken thighs, so the chicken juices drip down onto the vegetables as they cook. Serve it up with an easy creamy honey-jalapeno sauce to bump up the flavor even more!
Combine all ingredients for the spice blend in a bowl. Measure out 2 teaspoons for the sweet potato.
To Marinade the Jerk Chicken Thighs:
Whisk together the jerk spice mix, vinegar, coconut aminos, oil, and sugar in a large bowl.
Stir in the chicken, cover, and refrigerate 12 to 24 hours.
Let the chicken sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before cooking.
To Cook the Jerk Chicken Thighs and Jerk Sweet Potatoes:
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Prep the sweet potato. To do so, put the sweet potato in a medium-sized saucepan and cover with water by 2 inches. Cover the saucepan, bring up to a boil, and then cock the lid, turn down the heat so it doesn’t boil over, and boil 4 minutes. Drain and stir together the par-cooked sweet potato with the onion, and jerk spice mix.
Brush the bottom of a large roasting pan with the oil and spread the potato/onion mixture out in an even layer. Securely fit a wire rack over the top of the roasting pan and arrange the chicken on top, skin side up.
Roast until the chicken is fully cooked (there should be no pink when you cut into it), about 1 hour.
To Make the Creamy Honey Jalapeno Sauce:
Meanwhile, stir together all ingredients for the sauce and keep refrigerated until serving.
To Serve:
Serve the chicken and sweet potato hot along with the cool sauce to drizzle on top.
Notes
Cashew “Cream”:My recipe for Cashew Cream is on Healthy Sweet Eats; just skip the vanilla and use water or non-dairy “milk” instead of maple syrup. Alternatively, if keeping this paleo isn’t a concern, instead of coconut milk or cashew cream, you can use plain unsweetened yogurt or sour cream thinned out with a splash of water.