Panko-Crusted Baked Chicken Legs Recipe | Crispy Oven Baked Chicken (2024)

Easy to make Crispy Panko-Crusted Baked Chicken Legs made with just a few simple ingredients – so crispy you won’t believe it’s not deep fried. If you don’t have the time to make fried chicken, this chicken leg recipe is here to save your bacon!

Oven Baked Panko Chicken Legs Recipe

Hello easy chicken dinner! This is such a simple recipe that turns an inexpensive chicken leg into something super delicious. It’s super simple to throw together (season the chicken, dip it in beaten eggs, then roll it in bread crumbs, and repeat). And the best part? Your whole family will love this dish! I love a meal that everyone likes, and believe me, that’s no small feat with a family of seven.

This is also a really easy meal to plan your favorite seasonal sides around. Serve it with fresh corn and watermelon in the summer and a loaf of crusty bread and winter squash in the winter. With a classic main dish, you can serve it with whatever you like or have on hand (I have a long list of serving suggestions at the end of the post).

This recipe is also really easy to scale up or down, so make it for a table set for 2 or 20.

Tips and Tricks for Making Crispy Panko-Crusted Baked Chicken Legs:

• New to smoked paprika? It adds great depth of flavor and richness that’s hard to mimic. Finding it is worth the effort (and it’s great in Mexican dishes, too).
• Baking the chicken on a wire rack is the key to the crispy outside (it cooks evenly all around and isn’t sitting in its own juices). If you don’t have a wire wrack, you can bake the chicken directly on the pan though your results won’t be quite as awesome.
• If you have time, letting the chicken rest with the spice rub on it for a half hour is great.

What Makes Baked Chicken Legs Crispy?

I use a few different tricks to make these drumsticks extra crispy. One is baking the chicken on a wire rack set in a baking pan. This helps the hot air circulate all around the chicken while baking and it also keeps the chicken from cooking in its own moisture. Panko bread crumbs are the other key to this recipe. They are extra large bread crumbs that help things to cook up extra crispy. Look for them in a box next to your traditional bread crumbs.

Can You Freeze Baked Chicken Legs?

When it comes to this crispy chicken recipe, freezing doesn’t work. It loses its crispy outside which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the recipe. So no, don’t freeze this recipe; the end result isn’t great.

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Other Chicken Leg Recipes You’ll Love:

• Lemon Garlic Baked Chicken Legs
• 4-Ingredient Honey Mustard Baked Chicken Legs
• The Best Baked Chicken Legs
• 5 Ingredient Slow Cooker Chicken Legs
• 8 Must-Make Recipes for Chicken Legs
• Crispy Baked Chicken Drumsticks with a Pretzel Coating
• Simple Oven Roasted Chicken Drumsticks
• The Best Oven Baked Chicken Leg Quarters

What to Serve with this Chicken Leg Recipe:

• Crispy Homemade Sweet Potato Friesand Deli-Style Broccoli Salad
• Perfect Steakhouse Baked PotatoesandSauteed Asparagus
• Super Simple No-Knead BreadandEasy Apple Spinach Salad with an Apple Vinaigrette
• Simple Maple Roasted Butternut Squash
• Simple Italian Pasta SaladandBerry Spinach Salad with Citrus Poppy Seed Dressing

So many serving suggestions and most of them are just as easy as the chicken! I can’t wait for you to add this to your dinner rotation, because it’s easy and satisfying and your whole family will love it.