Creamy Dijon Chicken Thighs with Bacon and Spinach

Mother's Day. Colleen Gallagher deserves a better holiday than this, but she's the kind of woman who deflects any acknowledgment of what she's done and is, so the holiday mostly becomes: Ryan and Patrick make sure she doesn't have to cook and we find something decent to eat and she pretends not to notice the effort.

I cooked dinner. A real one — bone-in chicken thighs, browned hard in the cast iron and then finished in the oven with shallots and white wine and herbs from her windowsill. The kind of cooking that requires me to pay attention but that isn't so involved I'm not present in the kitchen with them. She ate most of it and said it was good. Patrick said nothing except to get a second piece, which is the Gallagher way. After dinner she made us tea and we sat on the porch and it was the first warm evening of the year — genuinely warm, coat-off warm — and the river caught the last light and we sat there until it was dark.

I was thinking about how many Mother's Days she spent looking for signs of the thing she was afraid of losing me to. Not just since Afghanistan — before that too, the ordinary mother-worry about a son who was always outside, always taking physical risks, always doing the dangerous version of whatever was available. She used to check on me twice in the night when I was a teenager, thinking I didn't know. I knew. I just didn't say anything because saying something would have meant having a conversation about why she was doing it, and having that conversation would have meant acknowledging the fear.

We don't acknowledge fears in this family. We just check on each other twice in the night. I think I understand now why that is. I think I understand it better than I ever have.

This is close to what I made that night — bone-in thighs, browned hard, finished low and slow with something creamy and sharp to cut through the richness. The Dijon and the bacon do what the shallots and white wine did in Mom’s kitchen: they give you a reason to stand at the stove and pay attention without disappearing into the cooking. It’s a dinner you can make while still being in the room with the people you made it for.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons whole grain Dijon mustard
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 cups fresh baby spinach
1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

Season the chicken. Pat chicken thighs dry with paper towels and season generously on both sides with salt and pepper.
Cook the bacon. In a large oven-safe cast iron skillet over medium heat, cook the chopped bacon until crispy, about 5–6 minutes. Transfer bacon to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside, leaving the rendered fat in the skillet.
Brown the chicken. Increase heat to medium-high. Add olive oil to the bacon fat. Place chicken thighs skin-side down and cook undisturbed for 6–7 minutes until the skin is deeply golden and crisp. Flip and cook 2 minutes more. Transfer chicken to a plate.
Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add garlic and thyme to the skillet and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Pour in the white wine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Let it reduce by half, about 2 minutes. Stir in the chicken broth and Dijon mustard until smooth. Add the heavy cream and stir to combine.
Finish in the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F. Nestle the chicken thighs back into the skillet, skin-side up, so the skin stays above the sauce. Transfer to the oven and bake uncovered for 20–25 minutes until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165°F.
Add the spinach. Remove skillet from oven. Transfer chicken to a serving plate. Place skillet over medium heat on the stovetop, stir the spinach into the sauce, and cook until just wilted, about 1–2 minutes. Taste the sauce and adjust salt and pepper.
Serve. Spoon the creamy spinach sauce over the chicken thighs and top with the reserved crispy bacon.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy Dijon Chicken Thighs with Bacon and Spinach — The Kind of Dinner That Lets You Stay Present