This Buffalo Chicken Thigh recipe is tasty, versatile, and a quick way to breathe new life into your chicken dinner.

Buffalo chicken thighs on a plate topped with buffalo sauce and blue cheese garnished with celery.

Easy Buffalo Chicken Thighs

Season, cook, sauce, and enjoy! It’s as easy as 1-2-3 to get your chicken from basic to flavor bomb. We love our easy Buffalo Chicken Wings recipe so much that we thought we’d experiment with boneless chicken thighs, and it works!

Looking for More Recipes Like This?

Then you’ve got to try our set-it-and-forget-it crock pot buffalo chicken recipe. It’s a great time saver and perfect for when you’re feeding a crowd.

What You Will Need

chicken thighs – The dark meat is so juicy in this recipe! We chose boneless, but you could always experiment with bone-in chicken thighs. Just be sure to adjust the cook time.
kosher salt & ground black pepper – Don’t forget to season that chicken!
butter – Just a bit of melted butter to coat the pan to ensure the most juicy chicken.
buffalo sauce – We love our homemade buffalo sauce, but you could always pick some up wing sauce at your local grocery store.
for serving – blue cheese dressing, ranch dressing, blue cheese crumbles, and/or celery sticks.

How To Make Buffalo Chicken Thighs

If you’re making homemade buffalo sauce, gather the garlic powder, paprika, salt, pepper, ghee, and Frank’s hot sauce. Melt the ghee in a small sauce pan, add the seasonings and then the hot sauce. Place it in a small bowl and set aside while you start on your chicken. This is a great one to meal prep earlier in the week! Just be sure to store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Individual bowls of ghee, paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Frank's hot sauce. All of those ingredients in a small jar with a spoon.

Bring a large cast iron skillet to medium high heat while you sprinkle both sides of the chicken thighs with salt and pepper. When the skillet is hot, add the butter and swirl it around the pan to coat the bottom evenly. Add the chicken thighs and let them sear for about 2-3 minutes per side and then drop the heat to medium. Let your chicken cook until your digital meat thermometer reads 165 degrees F.

A plate with raw chicken thighs on a plate seasoned with salt and pepper. Cooked chicken thighs in a skillet.

Toss the chicken thighs in the buffalo sauce and enjoy!

What To Serve With Buffalo Chicken Thighs

So many different side dishes would be excellent with this versatile main course. Some simple oven roasted green beans or roasted broccolini would both be great. We love enjoying these juicy chicken pieces in our mouthwatering Buffalo Chicken Rice Bowl! It’s everything you love about buffalo sauce and more! Or our ultimate buffalo chicken salad is out of this world good!

Chicken thighs on a plate topped with buffalo sauce, ranch dressing, and blue cheese.

Recipe FAQs and Tips

What is the best method for cooking chicken thighs? This is pretty subjective so we’ve got a ton of options on the site including blackstone chicken thighs, smoked chicken thighs, how to grill chicken thighs, air fryer chicken thighs, and cast iron chicken thighs, to name a few.
Can you use chicken thighs instead of wings? Absolutely! Both have that dark meat that we know and love.
Should you put buffalo sauce on chicken before or after cooking? We’ve found that adding the sauce after cooking yields the best tasting buffalo thighs.

Pinterest image showing buffalo chicken thighs with the title Easy Buffalo Chicken Thighs so easy and so delicious!

Made these coated chicken thighs loved them?! We would love it if you would take a minute and leave a star rating and review – it is also helpful if you made any substitutions or changes to the recipe to share that as well. THANK YOU!

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Other Buffalo Sauce Inspired Recipes You Might Like

Buffalo Chicken Thighs

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Author: Erin Jensen
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 6 servings 1x
Category: Dinner/Entree
Method: Stove Top
Cuisine: American

Print Recipe

Description

Our quick and easy Buffalo Chicken Thighs recipe can be made right on the stovetop and served any way you want!

Ingredients

Scale

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs
kosher salt and ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter (sub plant-based butter)
1/2 – 1 cup buffalo sauce, adjust as desired
serving suggestion: blue cheese dressing or ranch dressing, blue cheese crumbles, and/or celery sticks

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Instructions

Season Chicken: Sprinkle both sides of the chicken thighs with salt and pepper.
Cook Chicken: Bring a large cast iron skillet to a medium-high heat and add butter to melt. Sear chicken thighs for about 2-3 minutes per side, then drop the heat to medium and continue cooking until the internal temperature at the thickest part of the meat reaches 165 degrees F (use a meat thermometer).
Sauce: Toss the cooked chicken thighs in buffalo sauce. Option to add more or less, as desired.
Serve: Enjoy any way you want – by themselves, on a sandwich, wrap, salad, etc!

Notes

Sauces & Dressings: feel free to keep it easy and use store-bought versions, but we also have a homemade buffalo sauce, blue cheese dressing, and ranch dressing!
Dairy Free: simply use a plant-based butter and a dairy-free dressing.
Whole30/Paleo: use ghee in place of butter, a compliant buffalo sauce (we love Primal Kitchen) and a compliant ranch dressing! Omit the blue cheese crumbles.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 6 oz
Calories: 324
Sugar: 0 g
Sodium: 1778.1 mg
Fat: 21.8 g
Carbohydrates: 1.6 g
Fiber: 1.2 g
Protein: 29.8 g
Cholesterol: 150.2 mg