Grilled Chicken – How to Grill Perfect Chicken Every Time!

This easy Grilled Chicken comes out perfect every time! 

Follow these simple steps to get great flavor, crispy skin, and juicy texture for the BEST grilled chicken! Stop overcooking chicken and learn the tips and tricks that pros use!

Grilled chicken can be a little intimidating for people. Too often people are afraid of under-cooking chicken, which instead results in overcooked, dry, and boring chicken. With the right dry rub, techniques, and an understanding of how to grill chicken, you can make fantastic grilled chicken every time.

This simple recipe and technique involves a tasty savory dry rub, and instructions on how to get that irresistible crispy skin, and juicy tender meat every single time.

Buying Chicken – Which cuts are best for grilling?

Chicken can be purchased in many ways. The least expensive is typically a whole roaster chicken, which can then be butchered at home for the pieces. Or you can buy the chicken in parts. The best parts for grilling chicken are:

• Breast (bone-in or boneless)
• Thighs
• Drumsticks
• Wings

Pro Tip: If you buy a whole roaster and butcher it yourself, save the bones for stock! You can find the details on our favorite smoked chicken stock in our cookbook, Fire and Wine.

Skin on or off? 

Skin on adds a great texture to the grilled chicken. We buy skin on. But boneless skinless chicken breast follows the exact same method if that is your preference.

Best Seasoning for Grilled Chicken

For grilled chicken we use a dry rub, like this one, that has no sugar in it. Sugar can cause burning when cooked over a high heat source. This simple chicken dry rub includes salt and savory ingredients like:

• kosher salt
• course ground pepper
• smoked paprika
• granulated garlic
• dried sage
• dried thyme

If you’re smoking chicken (i.e. low and slow cooking), we use an all purpose rub like this one, that has sugar and slowly caramelizes over a longer cooking period, but is also never exposed to direct heat.

How to Grill Chicken

For the best grilled chicken, it is easiest to have the chicken in the various parts we mentioned above. Each piece will cook at a different speed, so the chicken can be pulled separately when each is done. When grilling chicken, cooking with Direct and Indirect method is also very important.

Break it down into steps:

• Grill First Over Direct Heat
• Move to Indirect Heat to Finish
• Add Glaze at the End (optional)

Direct and Indirect method is having the charcoal or heat source on one side of the grill for searing, and the other side with no charcoal or heat source. This allows the next important technique, to sear the chicken over the direct heat getting the crust on each side, and then moving to indirect heat to finish to the desired internal temperature. This is the key to perfect grilled chicken.

Why does the direct indirect method matter? Because as high heat sears the chicken, the fat from the chicken will render out faster and drip into the coals. This can cause flare ups that send large flames and potentially burn the chicken, creating the crusty dark burnt skin, while still having an under-cooked interior. After searing the chicken to your desired crust, moving the chicken to indirect prevents the fat from causing flare ups and roast like an oven.

Have a gas grill? Unlike a charcoal grill, you can lower the flame. That said, it is still easy to use this method with a gas grill to avoid burning the chicken, even with a lower flame.

Preparing chicken: Be sure to only pat the chicken dry. You do not need to rinse, as it has been found to cause cross contamination in an average kitchen. You can use a paper towel to do this. You can also add a little olive oil to the chicken to help any dry rub act as a binder. But that is not necessary.

What Temperature to Grill Chicken

One of the single biggest secrets to perfect grilled chicken is understanding the temperature of when your chicken is done (165 degrees F). With the salmonella potential of chicken, there is good reason to make sure the meat is cooked to proper temperature, but most people heavily overcook it to be safe, and as a result the chicken turns out dry and way overcooked.

The USDA encourages chicken to be cooked to 165 degrees Fahrenheit to kill any bacteria. And while that is true, there is a process when grilling or cooking meat that is important and plays into when you pull your chicken — that is carry over cooking.

What Is Carry Over Cooking

Carry over cooking is when you pull the meat off of the heat source, and the temperature in the center most part of the meat continues to rise in temperature as heat travels from the warmer outer portion of the meat, to the inner or cooler portion of the meat. The larger the cut, the more the temperature will “temp up.”

When cooking on the grill the heat generated from your fuel cooks from the outside of the meat in. Heat wants to travel from hot to cold, so when you are cooking chicken, you can target 165 degrees as the finished temperature, but actually pull the chicken when the coolest part of the chicken is around 160 – 162 degrees. Once you pull, it will temp up to 165 degrees and be safe to eat (and maintain incredible moisture).

In order to get the most accurate temperature you need an instant read thermometer. This is one of the key grill tools needed for anyone cooking outdoors (or indoors for that matter). Our go to instant read thermometer for chicken is the Thermoworks Thermapen MK4. The probe is easy to use, it is virtually instant and most important, we can slowly move the probe through the chicken so we see the range of temperature and pull at just the right time.

The benefit of cooking separate chicken pieces is that you can take the temperature of each cut and pull each piece when it reaches the optimal temperature since each cut and each piece will finish at different times.

How to take the temperature of chicken

As you pass the thermometer through the chicken, you are always using the lowest temperature as the target, and making sure to insert the probe into the center of the meat, not touching bone. For an entire roaster chicken you will temperature in multiple locations for the most accurate read.

How long does it take to grill chicken

It depends on the individual piece and size. Generally the chicken in pieces will cook in 20 – 25 minutes total. Other factors that will increase or decrease chicken cooking time include how hot your grill is, how close to the fire it is, or how much chicken you pack into the grill.

Glazes and Sauces

Glazes are simply a sauce added while cooking meat. Glazes or sauces should also be added at the end of the grilling. Why? If adding a glaze or a sauce to chicken too early, the crispy skin will absorb the liquid and get gummy. To maintain the crispy skin and bite, add the glaze in two steps. First when the chicken is at 155 degrees F (because we are pulling at 160), and then glaze a second time just after you pull the chicken off the grill and let it rest. The sauce will firm up and still keep the texture of the skin crispy.

Glazes also contain sugar, so they can also burn. This is especially important to note if you are grilling direct heat and have already added a glaze (sauce). It will also cause flare ups. So when to add a glaze to chicken matters.

Recipe for Perfect Grilled Chicken

This fool proof method will have you grilling perfect chicken every time. Once you test it out once, you can adapt it with marinades and different finishing glazes. Marinating, brining, and other techniques certainly can enhance the flavor. But we find that starting with the basic technique of grilled chicken is important because the same rules will apply regardless of the additional flavor techniques.

More Questions?

How to keep chicken from sticking to the grill?

First, start with a clean grill grate. Apply a high heat oil to the grill if you would like prior to cooking or heating. As the meat sears, it will reach a sweet spot where it will lift right off the grate. Dirty grates cause sticking, so after every cook, get into the habit of brushing the grill off.

Should I marinate Chicken?

Marinating chicken is personal choice and can add additional flavor. It can be as simple as Italian dressing, or something homemade. Either way, the same cooking technique applies. When marinating chicken, we recommend marinating anywhere from 3-6 hours, using smaller cuts (like cubed chicken pieces, our pounded chicken breasts). Here’s our go-to marinade for grilled chicken.

Bone-in vs Boneless Chicken

Bone-in chicken holds everything together and, for chicken breasts, acts as a heat shield (acting as a barrier between the meat and the heat source). When possible, we prefer to cook bone-in chicken.

If you are opting for boneless, just be aware the meat will likely cook faster than bone-in.

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More Awesome Chicken Recipes for the Grill or Smoker

• Grilled Wine Can Chicken
• Grilled Sriracha Sweet Chili Chicken
• Grilled Chicken with a Cranberry Chipotle Citrus Glaze
• Grilled Chicken with Cherry Chipotle BBQ Sauce
• Dry Brined Smoked Chicken with Carolina Glaze
• Grilled Chicken with Blackberry BBQ Sauce

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*This post contains affiliate links for the ThermoWorks Mk4 Digital Thermometer. We only recommend products we use and love! And we use these thermometers use regularly and consider them an integral part of successful grilling.