Grilled Boneless Chicken with Ralph's Barbecue Sauce

Ralph's Barbecue Sauce from Salisbury, NC

Last night I grilled boneless, skinless chicken breasts on the PK cast aluminum grill. I work with Ralph at the college but did not know that he was a BBQ sauce guy until this month. We tried out his Bar-B-Que sauce on smoked pork butt (which takes a lot of time and work). Ralph mentioned that he liked his barbecue sauce best on chicken, so I wanted to do chicken too.

Ralph's barbecue sauce is a traditional Lexington, NC type of sauce. That means that it's a mop sauce - thin with a vinegar base and with it being western for NC, then it's got a little red (ketchup). There are also pepper seeds to give it a little kick. Mostly it's not real hot around here, but you can get some of the guys around to notch it up. Ralph said that he triples the peppers for his preacher who likes his barbecue smoking hot.

Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts Marinating in Ralph's BBQ Sauce

First, I put our chicken in a bowl and covered the chicken with Ralph's barbecue sauce. I let it sit about 20 or 30 minutes to let the chicken come up to room temperature. If meat is real cold, then it will tend to stick to the grates. Also, this allows the sauce to flavor the chicken some even before it goes on the grill.

Grilling Chicken on Our Portable Kitchen Aluminum Cast Grill

While the boneless chicken was grilling, I moppped it some. I used a brush and just put a little extra barbecue sauce on as the chicken was grilling. This works well with a thin mop sauce. If you have a thick Kansas City style sauce, then you only want that on at the end, because it has more sugar, and it will burn before the chicken is done. With a mop sauce, you may get some dark spots, but it's not a burned taste. It's just yum.

Yum. Chicken Looks and Smells Great with This NC BBQ Sauce.

I flipped the chicken over. It only takes 5 to 10 minutes with these small pieces. You can see the white grilled or cooked color coming up the sides. When it's about half up the sides, you flip the chicken and finish off the other side at about the same time.

Ralph's Barbecue Sauce Chicken

We loved the grilled pork butt with Ralph's Bar-B-Que sauce, but I'd have to agree that it rocks the chicken. You can grill chicken and mop it as I did here (and with a print off recipe below), or you can fry the chicken and then lather on some Ralph's barbecue sauce. That's the next thing we plan to try. Barbi-fry chicken is popular here with the vinegar based sauces, and Ralph's sauce is so yummy that the local Village Inn Pizza uses his sauce on Wednesday wing night.

print recipe

Grilled Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

by Cyndi Allison May-10-2011

Go healthy on the grill with boneless, skinless chicken breasts that taste so great that you'll not feel deprived one bit.

Ingredients

• 4 or as many as wanted boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup or so (more if grilling more chicken) barbecue sauce

Instructions

Be sure boneless, skinless chicken breats are thawed out and let them rest in a bowl with a mop style barbecue sauce marinade. You can also use Italian style dressing, but you get a very different flavor.While barbecue chicken is marinating, start grill. You want the grill about 350 degrees F or medium hot. Preheating helps prevent sticking. Put boneless chicken breasts or tenders on grates to grill and let grill until cooked about half done. Time will vary, but this should take 5 to 10 minutes depending on the size on the chicken and the heat of the grill. If using a mop barbecue sauce (thin vinegar base), then you can brush on more sauce while the chicken is grilling. Turn the chicken over when it has grill marks, and you can see a white cooked grilled color coming up the sides.Again, you can mop on more of the North Carolina barbecue sauce with is thin and heavy on vinegar. Let the chicken grill for, again, about 5 to 10 minutes. You do want chicken grilled through but not dried out. You can use a knife and cut into one of the thicker boneless breasts to double check. After you grill the chicken a few times like this, you will be able to eyeball it and know. Take chicken off the grill with tongs, and it's ready to serve immediatly, or it can rest a few minutes while you're finishing up the rest of the outdoor meal.

Details

Prep time: 25 mins Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 50 mins Yield: 4 servings or more

Amazing Dad's Sauce BBQ Sauce - Barbecue Sauce Review

Amazing Dad's BBQ Sauce by the Honey Bunny Company


Amazing Dad's Sauce BBQ Sauce is out of Canada with the Honey Bunny Company. Fred of Canada gave me this bottle (which is not really a bottle), but I looked around. Amazon carries the Honey Bunny products, so while I can't find it on the shelf in my area, folks from the United States and other areas can get this one pretty easily by searching.

The first thing that caught my eye here is the packaging. This barbecue sauce is in a container more like the little juice drinks (but larger). I know some BBQ sauce guys read my blog, so I was thinking that this sort of packaging might be of interest. If you buy barbecue sauce, then you know shipping runs high (and it's easy to get damage with traditional glass), so I think this might help reduce costs on shipping out good barbecue sauces and also mean less chances on damages.

New Barbecue Sauce Packaging Works Well

I wasn't sure how barbecue sauce in a pouch (so to speak) would work out, but it really is super easy to use. BBQ sauce is thicker than juice, but it comes out easily. You can press (just lightly) and it comes right out in the bowl.

In the photo above, I am using my right hand on the sauce and the left hand for the camera (someone needs an assistant around here huh?). That was the only way I could get the label to show, and although it is not how I would usually pour sauce, it worked out just fine as you can see. This shot also gives you a good idea as far as how the spout on this new packaging works.

Dad's BBQ Sauce by Honey Bunny

Any product with a honey base is going to be sweet, so I opted to go with chicken (which works well with a sweet sauce). I do cut up chicken pieces too, but the boneless chicken breasts and tenders are super quick and easy, so it was another of those fast food grilling nights. You can read about how to do the boneless chicken on the grill on my main site - Yes You Can Grill. If you use the little tenders, then you need to cut the grilling time - those grill up real fast. Watch them close.

Chicken Tenders on the Char-Broil Urban with Dad's BBQ Sauce

This is the darkest colored sauce I think I've ever used on the grill. Trust me. I did not burn anything. This is just a rich dark sauce with a honey base.

I put the chicken on very briefly to "set" it and get the grill marks, and then I sauced it early. With full cuts of chicken, you want to wait to sauce with a sugar or honey sauce until the last 10 minutes or so. With these small pieces, It might just be 10 minutes total depending on your heat level.

Grilled Chicken Tenders with Honey Bunny Dad's BBQ Sauce

My youngest son adores honey, and he loves the dark honey from the mountains. At the grocery store, you mostly get the light stuff which does not have as much flavor. So, he really rocked the chicken tonight. This is one of his all time favorite barbecue sauces.

On my end, I do say thumbs up. This is an excellent sauce for meats that go well with a quite sweet sauce. I would not put it on beef myself, but different strokes. I call it an excellent chicken and pork barbecue sauce. I liked the thick and rich flavor with honey taking center stage on the grilled chicken.

I'd also note that this is an organic product. It even has organic onion powder. I did not even know they made that. So, if you are in to organic, then Honey Bunny is all about that.

I'll have to check out more of this line. They sure seem to progressive with their ideas. The barbecue sauce is really good. My Poppaw was a beekeeper, and my son is a huge fan on honey. The packaging is interesting too and may make it easier for small batch companies to get products out there. I hope so, because there are some amazing barbecue sauces on the market, and most of them are not on your grocery store shelf.

How to Grill Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts - Grilled Chicken Recipe

Boneless, skinless, chicken breasts on the grill.

One of my buddies saw my chicken photo and wanted the chicken breast recipe. It's a super simple grilled chicken recipe that I started doing last year when cooking for larger groups.

What I do is either buy the boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut them in two or three pieces all close in size, or Food Lion here sells them cut like that and called chicken tenders or strips I think.

There are several reasons for doing the chicken in small strips on the grill:

1. The chicken strips cook faster than full chicken breasts or bone in chicken. The time is in the same range as hot dogs.

2. Since the chicken grills quick, it stays moister (unless cooked too long).

3. The chicken has less fat and is healthier with no skin (which can be a problem though with larger pieces which can get dry).

4. The small grilled strips really can be finger foods - just a little messy with the sauce but not bad.

How to Make Boneless, Skinless Grilled Chicken

Before grilling marinate the chicken for an hour or so or do that in the morning or the night before. You can use your favorite marinade, but I generally use bottled Italian dressing - the oil based type and not the creamy. This just adds moisture and also keeps the chicken from sticking to the grill.

Heat the grill to medium hot or with coals burned down well if using charcoal. Let the grates heat too, because cold grates make foods stick. You can also spry Pam on the grates, but with the marinade, the chicken is not bad to stick.

Grill for around 4 minutes and flip the chicken strips. Put barbecue sauce on top and grill again around 4 minutes (or a little less). One last flip of the chicken to sauce the other side if you like and just enough time to heat.

Times vary on grills and the size of the chicken pieces. The chicken will look white and not pink. And, it really does not take long with the chicken cut this way.

As far as the barbecue sauce, we used John Boy and Bill's Original BBQ sauce here. It's excellent. We also like Stubbs. Kraft or any other type you like works well. One favorite here at our house is Chef Hymie Grande bbq sauce. It just happens to be diabetic sealed, but it tastes fabulous. I get that when my parents eat over. Just try some different barbeque sauces and see what you and family and friends like.

This is one of my many quick and easy barbecue recipes and tricks for rocking the grill. You can find more articles here at the blog and at my web site Yes You Can Grill. It really doesn't have to be hard to make and take forever to cook to be delicious, although I do have some more labor intensive and time consuming grill recipes that are worth the extra effort for sure.

Grilled Hamburgers and Boneless Chicken Breasts in the Rain

Grilling out Hamburgers and Boneless Chicken Breasts and Tenders in the Rain

My students had been asking, all semester, about when I was going to grill out for them. I think they were joking, but my small New Media class was the right size for a nice May cook out. I thought, "Yep. Let's do it."


Had to Keep Everything Covered with it Raining

Initially I was going with hand patted hamburgers and hot dogs, but one student asked about bringing some chicken. I told her that I'd just change the menu. Grilled boneless chicken breasts or tenders are easy.

The chicken was even more popular than the hamburgers with this crowd. I think I will have to give the credit on that to the sauce, Firefighters Barbecue Sauce. That was a real hit. It's tangy and works great on chicken or anything else that you might barbecue.

I did the burgers on the Portable Kitchen PK charcoal cooker and the chicken on the City Grill. With two meats going at once and chicken more delicate, I wanted better heat control, so gas made sense for the chicken. The charcoal added flavor to the beef. It adds flavor to chicken as well, but the trade off on convenience was a good idea especially since it rained while I was grilling.



Might Not Be Obvious - But It's Pouring the Rain on Me and the Grill

The Portable Kitchen Grill is cast aluminum, so it has excellent heat retention. That's good, because we had a gully washer right as the hamburgers started to sizzle.

Rain drops the temperature and can also dampen the coals. By keeping the lid closed a good portion of the time, I was able to complete the grilling. A few burgers were undercooked, but the students just let me know, and we put those back on the grill for a couple of minutes.

A good grill chef will roll with the punches and also make sure guests know that it's fine to speak up. If you have kids, you probably know this (-: Adults are more likely to keep quiet. But, an interactive griller can get everyone involved and comfortable.


My Girls - I Don't Have Any of My Own so Enjoy Some Girl Giggles at Gatherings

All the students offered to help, and I took them up on it. There's a lot to carry and do at a cook out. Extra hands make a world of difference. I've never understood the "keep out of my kitchen" or "stay out of the grill area" mentality. I love the company and also fewer trips back and forth to the truck or kitchen.


Let's Get This Fudge Under the Little Shelter, So It Does Not Get Wet

For dessert, I made homemade peanut butter fudge. That may seem a strange choice, since fudge is more often a holiday treat. My peanut butter fudge recipe is so quick (5 minutes on top of the stove), so when I need a splurge type dessert, that's what I make. It also ends up being the recipe I'm asked for most often.