No Limit BBQ Chicken

For the past few years, I’ve been BBQing pretty regularly for my family, kids, and friends.  Anytime I BBQ big chunks of meat, whole chicken, or bone-in chicken, I like to use the dry brine method to have the salt penetrate through the meat and season the meat more thoroughly and make it more flavorful during the cook.

This is a super simple BBQ chicken recipe and my go-to when the kids are craving BBQ.  We like all our BBQ with steamed rice and salad as sides, but you can eat it with whatever sides you like!

Ingredients:

6 pounds bone-in chicken, legs and thighs
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons salt-free BBQ rub or  No Limit BBQ Rub
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 cup BBQ sauce, for brushing

Steps:

Dry Brine Chicken- Salt the chicken pieces.  Add chicken to a ziplock bag or big bowl.  Refrigerate the chicken preferably overnight or at least 2 hours.

Prepare Chicken – Place the chicken on a sheet pan and pat dry.  Gently coat chicken pieces with olive oil.  Liberally season chicken pieces with bbq rub.

Prepare Grill – Fill a charcoal chimney 3/4 full of charcoal briquettes.  Light up the chimney until coals are fully burned.  Spread hot charcoal over one side of the grill to set up a two-zone fire on the grill for indirect grilling. Add two fruit wood chunks for extra flavor.

BBQ Chicken – Add chicken pieces skin side up to the indirect side of the BBQ grill.  BBQ the chicken with the lid closed at 325-350 degrees. After 30 minutes, open the lid and rotate chicken pieces to ensure even cooking.  Close lid. After 45 minutes, open lid and brush both sides of chicken pieces with BBQ sauce.  Close lid.  Cook for another 10 minutes or until the internal temperature of chicken pieces reaches 175 degrees.

Tips:

• When I use the dry brine technique, I use salt-free rubs to season the chicken in the Prepare Chicken step above.
• You can use bone-in chicken breasts or chicken wings as well.  For bone-in chicken breasts, make sure internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
• If using store-bought BBQ sauce, thin out the sauce a bit by adding 1 tablespoon of water and 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.
• If the chicken skin doesn’t look crispy enough for your liking, sear over high heat for 1 minute until the skin crisps up.  Monitor closely to avoid burning.
• If preferred, you can skip the brushing of BBQ sauce if you don’t prefer your BBQ chicken too saucy.