Smoked Chicken Thighs with Pineapple Barbecue Sauce
While I’ve professed the wonders of brining turkey to ensure a moist bird, I’d never brined chicken before. However, after seeing what Jeff did with some chicken thighs, it seemed like it was time to give this a try. So I brined, smoked, and glazed some chicken thighs with a tangy pineapple barbecue sauce.
This was absolutely delicious and very well suited to July 4th weekend (or any summer weekend) kind of grilling/barbecuing occasion. The effort is pretty minimal and the results are very flavorful. If you were to taste the sauce alone without the chicken, it will taste a little unbalanced as far as a barbecue sauce goes (in my opinion–it leans most heavily towards sweet and spicy), but when combined with the chicken as a glaze after being flavored with the brine and smoked with the spice rub, you get that full four-way flavor experience that is good barbecue (sweet, savory, spicy, smokey).
The chicken was crusty, sticky, smoky, tangy, spicy–just a lot of really enjoyable bold flavors. The hoisin and the pineapple really helped the sauce shine as more than just an everyday barbecue sauce, giving it that peculiar tang while the marinade left the chicken with a sweet and savory undercurrent. I would definitely do this alongside burgers if I were grilling for a crowd. Plus, just look at it. Does that not scream good, sticky fingers, messy, lick your lips barbecue or what?
- 2 lbs chicken thighs
- Orange Marinade
- 28 oz vegetable stock
- 2 cups orange juice
- 1/4 cup salt
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup mirin
- 3 tsp black peppercorns
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 star anise
- pinch of fennel seeds
- 3 cloves
- water (if needed)
- Rub
- sweet hungarian paprika
- granulated garlic
- granulated onion
- black pepper
- ground cumin
- ground coriander
- ground thyme
- dried oregano
- dried basil
- Pineapple Barbecue Sauce
- 5 cloves garlic
- 1 shallot
- knob of ginger
- 5 dried red chilis
- 2 Tbsp sake
- 2 Tbsp hoisin
- 1 Tbsp worchestershire
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/2-3/4 cup of pineapple chunks (fresh is obviously better than canned)
- 1/2 cup water
- black pepper
- ground chipotle
- ground thyme
- ground cumin
- celery seed
- dried oregano
Begin with the marinade. Simply mix everything in a pot and get it boiling, stirring until the sugar is entirely dissolved and mixed in. Once this has cooled down sufficiently (ice cubes speed up the process), put the chicken thighs in a container with this, adding water if you need any to ensure every piece is totally covered (I didn’t need any water–I had more than enough marinade!). Seal this up and give it at least a few hours in the fridge, preferably a day.
So now you’re getting hungry for dinner, so get the chicken out of the fridge and out of the marinade. Give this some time to warm up to room temperature and pat the chicken pieces dry.
Since the chicken will be smoked, don’t forget to soak the wood you intend to smoke with. I don’t have a proper smoker, so I just soak some wood chips (I used mesquite. Many would argue for a milder flavored wood with chicken, like apple, but I think this really works) for 30 minutes and then make a little tin foil envelope with holes (ta da! The poor man’s smoker!) to throw on the grill alongside the chicken.
Mix the spice rub in a bowl, not getting too hung up on proportions. Coat all sides of the chicken with the spice mixture.
Get the grill/smoker up to about 225-250°F and add your wood. If you have bone-in chicken thighs, good. If you have boneless (I totally forgot I didn’t mean to buy boneless until this point of cooking, lol), just wrap the thighs up again around where the bone would have been (you don’t want the meat unrolled and spread out so thin!). Place each piece of chicken on the grill and set a timer. In theory, they’ll be done in about 1-1.5 hours, so just ensure the temperature stays close to 225-250°F, and when you think you’re done, ensure the chicken registers an internal temperature of 160°F. Turn them once during the middle of cooking.
While the thighs are smoking, prepare the barbecue sauce. Fortunately, this is a real quicky. Mince the shallot, garlic, and ginger, also dicing the pineapple and dried chilis down to a smaller size. Sauté the shallot for 5-8 minutes, adding the garlic and ginger for an additional minute or two.
At this point, simply add in the remaining sauce ingredients, raise to a boil, and then drop the heat to a simmer for about 15 minutes. After this, simply puree the sauce in a blender or food processor and return it to the saucepan, simmering longer until it achieves a thickness that you’re happy with, at which point, you can set it aside.
Once the chicken is done cooking on the low heat, crank the heat up to medium/high. Lightly brush the chicken with your sauce, and after about 2 minutes, flip the pieces over and do the other side, giving it another 2 minutes to get nice and tacky and glazed. Plus, if you’re chicken thighs have skin on them, this step has the added bonus of crisping up the skin some which can get a little rubbery on chicken when you slow cook it like this.
At this point, you’re ready to serve, so get it on a plate and dig in. Enjoy!
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