Smoked chicken recipes are one of the best ways to add great flavor to your chicken.
Bird is the Word
When chicken is cooked properly, it is a very moist, tender, and flavorful meal. Unfortunately, chicken is all too easily overcooked, leaving you with a dry, tough dinner that is all but impossible to eat. In order to cook a chicken properly, you can grill it, barbeque it, or give it a good spice rub. But if you are going to go through all of that trouble to add flavor to your chicken, why not choose to use a cooking method that flavors your chicken as it cooks?
Most recipes that are called barbeque recipes are actually recipes for grilling. Barbequing involves a long smoking process, so all of your smoked chicken recipes are in actuality barbequing recipes. I am sure that most people do not actually own smokers. But if you have a grill, you can smoke anything you like, including a chicken.
R-A-G-G M-O-P-P Rag Mop!
If you plan on utilizing smoked chicken recipes, you may want to use a mop. A mop is the liquid version of a rub. Where a rub is dry, a mop is wet and is spread on the chicken with a rag mop style brush. Mops are often used in smoking recipes whether you are making chicken, pork, or beef. The difference between a barbeque sauce and a mop is that barbeque sauce is used after your chicken has finished cooking, but a mop is used during the cooking. Mops are generally a watery vinegar mixture, which helps to crisp the skin and give the smoke a moist surface to which to adhere.
Mop Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 2 shallots minced
- 2 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 cup of water
- 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon ancho chili powder
- 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon of dry mustard
- 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a saucepan.
- Add shallots and garlic and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Add the ancho chili, water, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, herbs, and pepper.
- Bring to a boil while stirring.
- Reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes.
- Taste for salt.
- Cover and store in the refrigerator until needed.
- You can substitute any dried herbs that you like.
Foil Packets
You will need to make some smoke packets as I describe in the smoked crown pork recipe, article but I will repeat it here.
To make the packets you will need:
Ingredients
- 72 ounces of wood chips
- 3 large pieces of foil
Instructions
- Soak 48 ounces of the wood chips in cool water for at least one hour.
- Drain the wood chips.
- Place 16 ounces of damp wood chips in each sheet of foil.
- In each foil, mix in 8 ounces of dry chips with the damp chips.
- Fold the foil around the wood chips and seal the edges.
- Poke holes in one side of the packet to let the smoke out.
Smoked Chicken Recipes
Ingredients
- 1 5-pound chicken
Instructions
- Truss the chicken so the legs are tight to the sides of the bird and the wings are tucked securely behind the bird.
- You can rub the inside of the bird with salt if you like.
- You may also want to add some lemon slices or onions slices or both inside the cavity of the chicken.
- To smoke the chicken, you will need to build a good hot fire of coals or set one side of your gas grill to medium heat.
- Once the coals are good and hot, move them to one side of the grill.
- Place one foil packet on the coals or on the gas flame.
- Place a tin pie pan under the grill opposite of the coals or heat.
- Close the grill cover and let the grill come to 220 degrees. Place the chicken on the opposite side of the grill from the smoke packet above the tin pie pan.
- Mop the chicken about every 15-20 minutes.
- If the smoke starts to thin, add another smoke packet.
- Keep the lid of the grill closed whenever not mopping.
- Smoke the chicken for 3-3 1/2 hours. The temperature of the chicken at the breast should be 165 degrees.
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