Does it get any better than BBQ chicken cooked slowly on the grill charcoal grill recipes slathered with your favorite barbecue sauce? BBQ Chicken on the Grill Does it get any better than BBQ chicken cooked slowly on the grill and slathered with your favorite barbecue sauce?

Here’s the best recipe for grilling perfect BBQ chicken for summer gatherings and cookouts. Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University. Along with hot dogs and hamburgers, barbecued chicken is about as classic as it gets when it comes time for grilling. But chicken takes longer to cook than either hot dogs or hamburgers and loves lower cooking temperatures, so it’s easy to mess up by under-cooking, over-charring, or both.

The trick to good BBQ Chicken? Done right, it will take at least an hour, and even up to 2 hours. Remember that barbecue is slow and low, grilling is hot and fast. The key here is to moderate your heat, however you can. Either set the coals of the grill all on one side so you have a cool spot, put the chicken on the top rack of the grill, farther away from the heat, or, if you have a gas grill, just turn the heat to low. What’s the Temperature of Cooked Chicken? The following is more of a “how-to” than a recipe.

Do you have a favorite BBQ chicken recipe? Or tip you would like to share? Please let us know about it in the comments. The good news is that pretty much any cut of chicken is well-suited for barbecuing. Chicken thighs and legs will hold up better to long, slow cooking than will breasts, which can more easily dry out.

If you are working with smaller chicken pieces, they may require a shorter cooking time. If you are cooking wings, they too may be done before the other larger pieces. Even if you do not plan on eating the chicken skin, it’s still best to barbecue it with it on. The skin will protect the chicken pieces from drying out. Coat the chicken pieces with olive oil and sprinkle salt over them on all sides.