When it comes to barbeque chicken, the recipe is more of a template listing the correct technique. You can use pretty much any spices you like or any barbeque sauce of choice. But it’s the process of cooking the chicken most of the way on indirect heat that makes this recipe such a crowd pleaser.
Barbeque Chicken Legs
Servingsservings
Prep timeminutes
Cooking timeminutes
Calorieskcal
Ingredients
5 chicken legs
1 TBSP kosher salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp chile powder (such as ancho)
1 TBSP brown sugar
3 garlic cloves, pressed
Any other spices of choice: onion powder, garlic powder, ground coriander, chili powder, etc
1 1/2 cups barbeque sauce
Directions
- Combine salt, pepper, chile powder, brown sugar and garlic in a small bowl. Spread all over the chicken legs. If desired, allow to sit uncovered refrigerated for a couple of hours, for the flavours to meld. This is an optional step and you may immediately proceed to the next step.
- Preheat one side of the grill to high. Leave the other side turned off. Clean and oil the grill well. Place the chicken skin side up on the cool side of the grill. Plan for the total cooking time for 1 hour, maybe 1 hour and 15 minutes. Although chicken is safe to eat at the internal temperature of 165F, the connective tissue in the legs benefits from cooking to about 185F (it breaks down better and stops being chewy.)
- After about 30-35 minutes of cooking, brush the chicken with barbeque sauce and continue grilling covered on the cool side of the grill for another 10 minutes. Repeat this step again. Cook the chicken until it’s at about 155-165F internal temp.
- Once it reaches that temperature, put the chicken skin side down directly on the hot side of the grill (turn it down to medium at this point to prevent burning.) Grill skin side down for no more than 3 minutes to get nice grill marks (it will start burning rather quickly due to the high sugar content of the barbeque sauce.) Brush the other side of the chicken with barbeque sauce, flip the chicken and grill the other side to get some grill marks and caramelize the sauce.
- Once you have grill marks on both sides of the chicken, move it back to the cool side of the grill. Brush as much as you like with more barbeque sauce. Continue cooking, covered, until the internal temperature is in the 180-185F range. As mentioned earlier, the total cooking time should be roughly an hour, depending on the size of your chicken legs.
