Miso-Butter Chicken With Grapefruit

By Ali Slagle

Published March 14, 2025

Miso-Butter Chicken With Grapefruit
Ghazalle Badiozamani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
Total Time
40 minutes
Prep Time
5 minutes
Cook Time
35 minutes
Rating
5(1,640)
Comments
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Buttery miso pan drippings add richness to this lively combination of crunchy greens, juicy grapefruit and sticky chicken. Start by roasting boneless thighs with a sweet-savory combination of butter, miso, mirin and grapefruit zest. As the chicken rests, toss grapefruit segments in the drippings, then use that mixture to dress bitter lettuces. If you’d like, instead of grapefruit, use an orange and add white wine vinegar to the sauce to taste. To make it a heartier meal, roast bite-size pieces of winter squash, carrots or sweet potatoes on a sheet pan in the oven at the same time as the chicken, then add them with the grapefruit in Step 4.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings
  • 1grapefruit
  • 3tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 3tablespoons white miso
  • 2tablespoons mirin
  • 1½ to 2pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
  • Salt
  • 4 to 5ounces baby arugula, or mix with other bitter greens like radicchio or dandelion greens
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

385 calories; 18 grams fat; 8 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 12 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 5 grams sugars; 42 grams protein; 744 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Arrange a rack in the upper third of the oven and heat to 425 degrees. Finely grate about 1 tablespoon grapefruit zest over the melted butter. Add the miso and mirin and whisk until smooth. Set aside.

  2. Step 2

    Pat the chicken dry; place it in a 9-by-13-inch broiler-safe baking dish and season lightly with salt. Scrape the miso butter over the chicken and mix with your hands until well coated. Arrange in a single layer. Roast on the upper rack until cooked through and charred in spots, 20 to 25 minutes. If the tops are burning, move the dish to the middle rack. If chicken isn’t browned enough, broil for a minute or two.

  3. Step 3

    Meanwhile, cut off the top and bottom of the grapefruit and set on one of the cut sides. Follow the curve of the fruit to cut away the peel and pith, reserving the peels. Slice the fruit into bite-size pieces, removing any seeds.

  4. Step 4

    Transfer the chicken to a cutting board to rest, then squeeze the juice from the reserved grapefruit peels into the baking dish; stir and scrape up any stuck-on browned bits. Stir in the grapefruit pieces.

  5. Step 5

    To serve, slice the chicken. Put the arugula on a platter or dinner plates, season with salt, then drizzle with some of the grapefruit and juices from the pan. Top with the chicken and more of the grapefruit and sauce.

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Ratings

5 out of 5
1,640 user ratings
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Comments

TJS

Recipe sounds fantastic! But we always laugh at the Prep time given in the NYT recipes -this one 5 minutes. It would take me more than 5 minutes to get all the ingredients out, much less all the other steps.

Kristin

wow! so good. Made this with salmon instead of chicken. We all loved it. We roasted carrots in the miso butter as well. (made double the amount of miso butter and it was not too much)

Alexa Kombucha

@Matt !PREACH! Miso shallot butter atop roasted sweet potatoes was one of my most universally beloved dishes. I finally have the the cult following I always wanted

JenA

This is amazing!! So glad I tried this!

SD

Is this ingredient miso soup or miso paste?

RichardS

Question. The pic shows nicely shaped slices. But all thighs I’ve ever bought are irregularly shaped and not very thick even at the thickest point. I can’t figure out how these nicely shaped slices are even possible given the geometry of boneless thighs I see in markets. I googled pics of sliced thighs and I see similarly thick-ish slices. How do the food stylists achieve this? ChatGPT suggests that for photo purposes the cooked thighs are rolled and frozen and then sliced. to achieve this look. If there’s a prep trick to achieve this, rather than a photo hack, I’d hope the recipe would include it. Thanks.

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