Barbecue Chicken
A spicy sweet barbecue sauce over tender chicken. Mmmm.
Chicken is grilled and slathered in a spicy, sweet barbecue sauce for a tasty treat any time of the year.
Whether you're planning a Father's Day cookout or a Fourth of July picnic, this barbecue chicken recipe will satisfy everyone at the table. It's slightly spicy, slightly sweet, and completely delicious. You'll want to serve it all year round.
The problem with a lot of barbequed chicken recipes is the outside of the chicken burns before the chicken is cooked all the way through. This recipe uses a grill-to-oven method of barbecuing the chicken to avoid that problem. The chicken is seasoned just slightly, then placed on the grill without any barbecue sauce on it. When the chicken gets those nice grill marks, then you remove it from the grill, baste it with the barbecue sauce, and finish it off in the oven.
The result is a perfectly-cooked barbecued chicken every time. Although this recipe calls for chicken breasts, it certainly works fine for chicken leg and thigh quarters. It will just be a bit higher in fat and calories.
Barbecue Chicken Recipe
- 3 lbs. chicken breasts, bone-in, skin removed
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
- 1 tsp. freshly-ground black pepper
- barbecue sauce recipe (below)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Preheat a grill pan, charcoal grill or outdoor gas barbecue to medium heat. Spray grill with nonstick cooking spray. Season both sides of chicken with salt and pepper. Place chicken on the grill. Cook 5 minutes. Turn chicken and cook five minutes more. Remove chicken from grill and place on a sturdy baking sheet.
Place chicken in preheated oven and cook 15 minutes. Remove from oven and brush chicken liberally with barbecue sauce on both sides. Return chicken to oven and cook another 20 to 30 minutes, until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F (for breasts; if cooking legs and thighs, let it go to 175 degrees F).
Remove chicken from oven and allow it to rest. The residual heat will continue cooking the chicken, and the temperature will rise another 5 degrees. You can check it with an instant-read thermometer to be safe.
Serve with remaining barbecue sauce on the side.
Barbecue Sauce Recipe:
- 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 small onion, diced finely
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1 12 oz. can frozen orange juice concentrate
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
- 1 dash tabasco sauce (or more, if you like)
Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook about two minutes, until just soft. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium low and allow to simmer about 20 minutes until sauce is reduced by one-third and the flavor is concentrated.
Reserve 1/2 cup of sauce for dipping. Use remaining sauce to baste on chicken following the recipe above.
