• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Renaissance Mom

Renaissance Mom

Better home cooking

  • Recipes
    • Breakfast / Snack
    • Lunch & Dinner
    • Sweets
    • Happy Hours
      • Cocktails
      • Small Bites
  • Bar Notes
  • Home & Garden
  • Breakfast / Snack
  • Lunch & Dinner
  • Sweets
  • Happy Hours
    • Cocktails
    • Small Bites
  • Bar Notes
  • Home & Garden
  • About
  • Privacy Policy & Disclosure
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Chicken, Duck & Turkey / Spanish Garlic Chicken (Pollo al Ajillo)

Spanish Garlic Chicken (Pollo al Ajillo)

Recipe by Connie Veneracion
With only nine ingredients, plus salt and pepper, you can make this richly flavored Spanish garlic chicken dish. It’s called pollo al ajillo which literally translates to chicken with garlic.
Prep Time 10 mins
Cook Time 40 mins
Total Time 50 mins
Course Main Course
Cuisine Spanish
Servings 4 people
Spanish garlic chicken (pollo al ajillo)
Print recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 1 kilogram chicken bone-in and cut into serving-size pieces (see notes after the recipe)
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 1 whole head garlic
  • ¼ cup all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup olive oil
  • ½ teaspoon dried thyme or about two sprigs fresh thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 cup sweet white wine
  • 1 cup chicken bone broth
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • finely chopped lemon zest (optional)
  • mint leaves thinly sliced (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and place in a bowl.
  • Sprinkle with a tablespoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of pepper.
  • Mix well working the salt and pepper into the meat.
  • Cover the bowl and set aside.
  • Peel the garlic and thinly slice each clove.
  • Add the flour to the chicken, cover the bowl and shake well to coat each piece of chicken lightly with flour.
  • Heat the olive oil in a wide shallow pan.
    Flouring chicken before frying
  • Lightly brown the chicken pieces, turning them around in the oil for even coloring. You are not cooking the chicken through at this point but merely searing them.
  • Once very lightly browned, scoop out and set aside.
  • Pour off the oil leaving only about two tablespoonfuls.
  • Reheat the oil and saute the garlic, thyme and bay leaves until the garlic slices start to brown.
    Sauteeing garlic, bay leaves and thyme in olive oil
  • Pour in the wine. Allow to boil, uncovered, until the liquid is reduced to half.
    Pouring in white wine to suteed garlic, bay leaves and thyme
  • Pour in the chicken broth.
    Pouring in chicken broth and adding fried chicken to sauce in pan
  • Add the browned chicken. Cover the pan, lower the heat and braise the chicken for about 20 minutes. During this time, the flour coating the chicken will thicken the sauce as it reduces.
    Simmering chicken in garlic sauce before adding lemon juice
  • Drizzle the lemon juice over the chicken and shake the pan gently to blend.
  • Taste the sauce, add more salt and pepper, if needed.
  • Cover the pan once more and simmer for another five minutes.
  • Arrange the chicken pieces on a platter or in a shallow bowl.
  • Pour the sauce (with all the garlic) over and around them.
  • Sprinkle with mint leaves and lemon zest.
  • Serve the pollo aj ajillo with rice or crusty bread.

Notes

Chicken wings went into my pollo aj ajillo because that was what I had. You can use drumsticks or thighs, or even a whole chicken chopped through the bone into serving pieces.
Spanish garlic chicken (pollo al ajillo) garnished with chopped lemon zesr and mint leaves
Updated from a recipe originally published in March 7, 2017
Keyword Chicken, Garlic
For Chicken Lovers

Pineapple Orange Duck

Chicken PIccata

Chicken Piccata

Chili Honey Fried Chicken

Chili Honey Fried Chicken

Published: March 26, 2021 • Last modified: March 26, 2021 ♥ Chicken, Duck & Turkey, Lunch / Dinner

This blog is moving. Go to Umami Days to update your bookmarks.

Previous Post: « BLT Bruschetta BLT Bruschetta
Next Post: Cheese-stuffed Potato Balls Cheese-tuffed potato balls »
Baker’s Notes

Choux Pastry (Pâte à Choux)

Cook’s Notes
Farm chickens

Chicken 101

Raw whole chicken

Avoid Salmonella and Campylobacter

Fresh chicken in Cu Chi Market, Vietnam

Chicken Cuts and Buying Guide

Sidebar

Recycled Leftovers

Bacon and Ratatouille Pasta

Bacon and Ratatouille Pasta

Leftover Roast Turkey Farmer’s Pie

Leftover Roast Turkey Farmer’s Pie

Recycling day-old bread into honey sesame toast

Honey Sesame Toast

Honey and sesame seed biscuits made from excess pie crust

Honey and Sesame Seed Biscuits

Beef Brisket BBQ Salad

  • About
  • Privacy & Disclosure
  • Contact

Except for stock photos and blockquotes, everything © Renaissance.Mom. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.