Paleo Cranberry Apple Chicken Thighs with Rosemary (Whole30)

This post has been sponsored by Ocean Spray. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

These paleo cranberry apple chicken thighs with rosemary are such a delicious paleo fall recipe. With organic cranberry juice and dried cranberries, these paleo cranberry apple chicken thighs are an easy and quick paleo dinner that’s elegant enough for company. Made with Ocean Spray® Organic 100% Juices from Kroger. Click here to check out all of Ocean Spray’s flavorful and perfectly fall products!

“I’m going to order fresh cranberries online. How many pounds do you want?”

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“Cheryl, wait, it’s August…”

“And?”

Being a food blogger means working ahead of the season to make sure you’ve got plenty of delicious, festive dishes queued up, stocking up on cans of pumpkin in June and Amazon Primeing little candy carrots for your double-decker carrot cake in January.

And it means calling every grocery store within a 25-mile radius in August looking for the ones who’d somehow, possibly have fresh cranberries. Because, while I love a good paleo pumpkin spice latte and I’m mad about peppermint chocolate truffles, it’s cranberries that really call me.

Thing is, though, they don’t really call me back until early October. They’re beautifully seasonal and thrive in conditions that are not too easy to transplant, meaning I have to summon some actual patience when it comes to the tart, jewel-colored berries. And while waiting so patiently (translation: not patiently at all), I found myself enrapt with the variations of the berry that are available all year long.

Ocean Spray® Organic 100% Juices from Kroger and Ocean Spray® Craisins Original Dried Cranberries.

I posted a teaser of my copycat cranberry bars with white chocolate cream cheese frosting in July, distracting my readers from their margaritas and burgers back to the promise of crisper breezes and early nights in thick socks spent by the fire, defining hygge itself.

Tart. Sweet. Perfection.

See, there’s something to me about cranberry juice and dried cranberries that the fresh fruit simple can’t rival, a richness that the young, plump fruit lacks in favor of brightness and tartness. So when I was working on quick and simple dinner recipes for the fall, I absolutely had to include dried cranberries and cranberry juice for an easy, seasonal flavor that’s so easy to love.

I mentally paired up my ingredients: apples for a mild sweetness, rosemary to perfume the dish with a heady, woody aroma. I based the recipe on my beloved creamy Whole30 bacon mushroom chicken thighs, and what resulted made everyone into instant fans.

I used Ocean Spray® Organic 100% Juice in Cranberry Apple to complement the fresh apples in the dish, reducing it down to concentrate the sweet but tart flavor. And with 100% of your daily vitamin C per cup, this Ocean Spray® Organic 100% Juices add a nutritional punch to this recipe, too. Win win win.

Leo happens to love the Cranberry Apple and Cranberry Blueberry juices, too, and I love it straight or with a bit of my homemade kombucha stirred in, too.

My assistant even begged me to take home a serving to her fiancé after our video shoot, having eaten the tender chicken thighs with their crisp skin standing up in the kitchen, talking about editorial calendars and Instagram reaches and what kind of shoes she should wear to her wedding and taking our running joke about our futures as evil Meryl Streep bosses just 10 minutes too far.

She best described his reaction to these paleo cranberry apple chicken thighs as:

!!!

Yep, these paleo cranberry apple chicken thighs are quick and easy, tender with beautifully crispy skin, slightly and naturally sweet with a touch of tart, grounded with woody rosemary. Like my creamy Whole30 bacon mushroom chicken thighs, they’re easy enough for a weeknight dinner but elegant enough for company. You might just make them all fall long. Who needs fresh cranberries, personally FedExed to you from Michigan, when you’ve got organic cranberry juice and Cranraisins?

…OK, but, seriously, I still can’t wait until I can get my hand on a bag of the fresh berries! Who’s on cranberry alert with me?

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Paleo Cranberry Apple Chicken Thighs with Rosemary (Whole30)

These paleo cranberry apple chicken thighs with rosemary are such a delicious paleo fall recipe. With organic cranberry juice and dried cranberries, these paleo cranberry apple chicken thighs are an easy and quick paleo dinner that's elegant enough for company.

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

• 4 chicken thighs bone-in, skin-on
• 1 tablespoon ghee or olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1 apple cored and sliced
• 1/3 cup Ocean Spray® Craisins
• 2/3 cup Ocean Spray® 100% Juice Organic Cranberry Apple
• 1/3 cup chicken stock
• salt
• freshly cracked pepper
• 5 sprigs fresh rosemary

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Heat ghee or olive oil in an oven-proof skillet over medium-high. Season both sides of chicken thighs generously with salt and freshly ground pepper. Carefully place chicken thighs in the skillet skin-side down, taking care to place them so they will cook evenly without having to move them. Cook for about 7 minutes or until skin side is nicely and evenly browned and releases easily from the pan. If the skin sticks, continue cooking until skin releases easily.
3. Transfer skillet to oven and cook for 13 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 160º F. Carefully transfer chicken thighs to another plate and place skillet on stovetop. Take special care to always, always use a pot holder from this step forward; the handle will stay very hot.
4. Add sliced apples and Craisins and cook on medium high heat for about 2-3 minutes, or until apples start becoming golden brown and a bit softened. Add garlic and, stirring constantly, sauté about 30 seconds to 1 minute, or until fragrant.
5. Add chicken stock, Ocean Spray® 100% Juice Organic Cranberry Apple, and sprigs of fresh rosemary to the skillet. Increase heat and bring to a gentle boil, then immediately reduce the heat to low. Simmer for about 2-4 minutes, until flavors are blended and sauce is reduced a bit.
6. Taste sauce and add more salt and pepper as desired. Return chicken thighs to skillet and coat with sauce.