Grilled Chicken with Blackberry BBQ Sauce
Grilled Chicken with Blackberry BBQ Sauce. A great way to use summer berries and jazz up grilled chicken.
Servings 4 servings
Ingredients
For the Chicken:
- 1 whole chicken, quartered (about 4 lbs)
- Extra virgin olive oil, to coat (roughly ¼ cup)
- ¼ cup dry rub
For the Blackberry BBQ Sauce:
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup ketchup
- ¼ cup hot sauce (we love Valentina hot sauce)
- ¼ cup cane sugar
- ¼ cup agave nectar (honey works too)
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- 6 oz blackberries (or other favorite berry, about 1 ½ cups)
Instructions
For the Chicken:
- Set your grill for direct and indirect (2-zone) cooking.
- Coat chicken with olive oil and then season liberally with your dry rub.
- Place chicken on direct heat, paying close attention to the flame to get a nice crust, about 3-4 minutes (or until you see nice grill marks) then flip.
- Repeat and get a nice crust on the other side of the chicken and then move to the indirect side. Cover grill and monitor temperature after 10 minutes. Legs and thighs will cook faster than your breast.
- When chicken reaches 155 degrees, glaze once with your sauce and continue cooking. Remove chicken from the grill when internal temperature reaches 165 degrees in the thickest part of the meat.
- Reglaze chicken once more and let sit for at least 5 minutes to let the juices redistribute and then enjoy.
For the Blackberry BBQ Sauce:
- In a medium saucepan add all BBQ sauce ingredients and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring often, until the sauce has reduced a bit and the berries have softened (using a potato masher or fork to break up the berries a bit).
- Transfer to a food processor or blender to make smooth, or pour the sauce through a strainer to remove some of the pulp and seeds.
- Serve with the grilled chicken.
Notes
With the hot sauce in the BBQ sauce: if your hot sauce is really spicy add it 1 tablespoon at a time. We like Valentina hot sauce, which isn’t too spicy. Just know that the spicier the hot sauce the spicier the resulting BBQ sauce will be. So start small.