Slow Cooked Barbecue Chicken Thighs
Barbecue chicken for some immediately conjures up memories of some sort of rustic smokey barbecue joint. For me, it works up memories of school lunches. Wait what?
Basically my first experience with barbecue chicken was my mom pouring barbecue sauce over leftover chicken breast and putting that between two pieces of sandwich bread and then sending me on my way to school with that as my lunch. Traditional barbecue it was not. But as a kid, your palette isn’t really refined anyways and it was actually the perfect introduction for me to barbecue chicken.
Barbecue chicken is not actually unique to the United States, there are varieties of it all over the world. But the sweet and spicy rub that’s put on the chicken here in the States is rather unique. Growing up I never really knew that barbecue chicken even varied from region to region. Depending on where you go the barbecue sauce may be ketchup based, vinegar based, or even mustard base.
In my sauce, I prefer a ketchup base I think it adds a good tang and sweetness to the sauce. My secret trick is adding soy sauce, it helps build the savory flavor in the sauce that you wouldn’t otherwise have.
Barbecue chicken for me is a comfort food, I prefer to not have to use my hands to eat it either. I just want pure meat, I don’t want to fuss around with bones. That’s why the boneless chicken thighs lend themselves to this dish. I go thigh instead of breast, because I think the thigh has more flavor.
This dish is so easy to make, it’s really just throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot and then cooking it in the oven for a while. This could probably easily transfer to a crockpot too.
Recipe – Slow Cooked Barbecue Chicken Thighs
Ingredients
1 lb of Chicken Thigh
1/2 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 Cup Korean BBQ Sauce
1 Tbsp. Tomato Paste
1/2 Tbsp. Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Ketchup
1 Tbsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
2 Tsp. Garlic Powder
1/2 Cup of Chicken Broth
1 Tsp. Cumin
4 Cloves of Garlic
Method
Mix all the ingredients together except the chicken, chicken broth, and garlic. Pour the chicken broth into a oven safe corning pot, then add your garlic cloves, and chicken thighs. Pour your sauce over the chicken thighs. Bake in the oven at 350F for 2 to 3 hours, covered.
Once the chicken appears cooked, if you have a convection setting on your oven switch it on near the end of the cooking process.Remove the cover and then cook the chicken a little longer.
This will allow the chicken to brown up and caramelize. If the sauce seems soupy, you can bake the chicken a bit longer, near the end of the cooking process mind the chicken thighs and make sure they don’t burn.
I flipped them over in the pot so they browned evenly.
