How to cook juicy grilled chicken

I was getting pretty tired of cooking thigh wings, and I didn’t dare to tackle a whole chicken until... Until I accidentally found an interesting recipe. Which is what I hasten to share with you!


When else, if not in the summer, can you take full advantage of the weather and cook all kinds of dishes on the fire or grill? I have already made a small selection of interesting dishes that can be prepared for a picnic. Now I got to the chicken.

So, it turns out that you can cook very tasty and juicy chicken on the grill. Alan Banks, the grandson of a man who was a chef in the Navy and cooked for admirals and other important people, shares his secrets. The grandfather shared his secrets with his grandson, and the grandson also turned out to be not greedy and shared it with the whole world.

I took the risk of replacing some ingredients with similar ones, since I’m not sure that we can find exactly the same products in our supermarkets.

Step #1. Bring the chicken to room temperature (let it sit out of the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes) and pat it dry with a paper towel.

Step #2. Cut the chicken so that it looks like a butterfly. Usually the cut is made in the middle, but Alan advises cutting the back - this way the chicken turns out juicier.

Step #3. Preheat the grill. Heat Check: You cannot hold your hand over the grill for more than 8 seconds.

Step #4. In the original source, the chicken is sprayed with oil from a spray. You can easily just coat it with vegetable oil with your hands.

Step #5. Now is the time to brush your chicken with your prepared poultry seasoning and throw it on the grill! Plus, you will also need lemon or lime juice and Italian tomato dressing. Instead of this tomato dressing, you can use any tomato sauce with herbs and garlic or make your own. Of course, it would be better to use Italian-made sauce, but I’m afraid that its cost here will be equal to the cost of a whole chicken.

Place the seasoned chicken on the grill. The back takes longer to cook than the brisket (2/3 of the total cooking time goes to the back and 1/3 to the brisket). Cook until tender, basting every 10 minutes with lemon or lime juice and Italian dressing.

Step #6. This step is only suitable for those who have special cooking thermometers. If you have one, the temperature of the thigh should be approximately 76.7 degrees and the brisket should be 71.1. If you don’t have a thermometer, then rely on your own experience and cutting the meat in the places where it takes the longest to cook (thighs).

Step No. 7 (the most important) . And the final touch for the juicy chicken and part-time Banks family secret is foil and a portable small refrigerator (they carry ice and drinks in these). Or just something very, very cold. Remove the chicken from the grill just a couple of minutes before it is fully cooked, wrap in foil and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. During this kind of rest, the juice that has flowed out of the chicken returns to its “home,” that is, back to the chicken. If you start cutting it right away, all the juice will end up on your plate and not in the meat. The “foil, cold, 30-minute” rule works with any grilled meat. That is, if you cook ribs on the grill, they should also be wrapped in foil and cooled for 30 minutes. And if you can wait a full half hour before cutting the meat, every cut piece will be juicy.

And on my own behalf I want to share with you a simple recipe for fragrant tomato sauce, tested on friends and family more than once. Easy and quick to prepare!

1. Choose tomatoes that are fleshier (the cream variety is best), cut them a little, pour boiling water over them, peel them, cut them and remove the seeds, grind them into a puree in a blender.

2. Add a little olive oil to a preheated deep frying pan, pour in the tomato paste, salt and pepper to taste, add dry basil or a mixture of Italian herbs, squeeze out the garlic and bring to a boil. If the sauce seems sour to you, add a little sugar or honey. If you like it spicy, then dry or ground chili pepper will also be very useful.

I think that this homemade tomato dressing will be much better than store-bought and will be very suitable not only for grilled chicken, but also for pasta. It also keeps for quite a long time in the refrigerator.

Bon appetit and have a nice weekend!