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 the NEW Ocean Spray® Organic 100% Juices found at your favorite Kroger banner store. There’s even a downloadable coupon for Kroger Plus members, so make sure you load that up to your card! 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?”

“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 Kroger 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® 100% Juice Organic 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, no artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, and no added sugar, this Ocean Spray® Organic 100% Juices add a nutritional punch to this recipe, too. Win win win.

I was beyond stoked when Ocean Spray recently launched a line of Organic 100% Juices! Leo happens to love the Ocean Spray® 100% Juice Organic Cranberry Apple and Organic Cranberry Blueberry flavors, and I feel good about giving them to him. Personally, I love the Ocean Spray® 100% Juice Organic Cranberry 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 Ocean Spray® Craisins® Original Dried Cranberries?

…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?

How to make these Whole30 cranberry apple chicken thighs with rosemary:

Hey – you’ve made it this far, so now we’re basically best friends! If you make this recipe, I’d love for you to give it a quick review & star rating ★ below. Make sure you follow me on Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and Facebook, too!

5 from 12 votes

Paleo Cranberry Apple Chicken Thighs with Rosemary (Whole30)

Prep:10 minutes

Cook:27 minutes

Total:37 minutes

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.

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4 servings

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 of Ocean Spray® Craisins® Original Dried Cranberries or apple juice-sweetened dried cranberries if on a Whole30
• ▢ 2/3 cup Ocean Spray® 100% Juice Organic Cranberry Apple
• ▢ 1/3 cup chicken stock
• ▢ 1 pinch salt
• ▢ 1 pinch freshly cracked pepper
• ▢ 5 sprigs fresh rosemary

Instructions 

• Preheat oven to 375 F.
• 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.
• 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 potholder from this step forward; the handle will stay very hot.
• 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.
• 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.
• Taste sauce and add more salt and pepper as desired. Return chicken thighs to skillet and coat with sauce.

Notes

Taste sauce and add more salt and pepper as desired. Return chicken thighs to skillet and coat with sauce.

Video

Nutrition Information

Serving: 4g, Calories: 433kcal, Carbohydrates: 21g, Protein: 24g, Fat: 28g, Saturated Fat: 9g, Cholesterol: 152mg, Sodium: 152mg, Potassium: 398mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 17g, Vitamin A: 156IU, Vitamin C: 6mg, Calcium: 20mg, Iron: 1mg, Net Carbs: 19g

Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.

 

Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.

 

To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.

© Author: Cheryl Malik