Chicken with Balsamic BBQ Sauce
I never thought I would ever turn to Food Network’s Italian beauty, Giada de Laurentiis for BBQ recipes, but she certainly surprised me with this one. I saw it in her book, Giada’s Kitchen
I loved this sauce. The balsamic vinegar gave this a tangy punch in the face. A good punch in the face, though. It’s probably one of the best BBQ sauces I’ve ever had. My kids LOVED this chicken (and the sauce, which they ate mostly with their fingers), and I had a hard time to get them to eat anything else I made that night.
Chicken with Balsamic BBQ Sauce
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces or 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt and freshly ground black pepperFor the BBQ sauce:
1 cup balsamic vinegar
8 oz can of tomato sauce
3 T brown sugar, honey, or molasses
1 garlic clove, minced
1 T Worcesterchire sauce
1 T Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepperDirections:
Combine all of the BBQ sauce ingredients into a small saucepan. Whisk until thoroughly combined, then simmer over medium heat until it's reduced by about a third. If it starts to stick to the bottom of the pan, reduce heat to medium-low. It'll take 15-25 minutes for the sauce to thicken up and coat the back of a spoon.
Meanwhile, preheat a stove-top grill pan or outdoor BBQ to medium heat. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
Transfer 1/2 cup of the finished BBQ sauce to a small bowl. Place the chicken on the grill for about 10 minutes per side, brushing chicken with the 1/2 cup (or more) BBQ sauce for the last 2-3 minute of cooking.
Transfer chicken to a serving platter and serve with remaining BBQ sauce.
Serves 4.
Nat's Notes:
1. I like to butterfly my chicken or slice it in half horizontally to create thinner pieces. It cooks faster this way and you have a higher BBQ sauce to meat ratio.adapted from Giada's Kitchen by Giada de Laurentiis
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MaryMoh — January 28, 2011 @ 8:17 am
Mmmm…this looks very delicious. I have bookmarked to try. I would love to grill the whole chicken. Actually I have not roasted a whole chicken. Would be fun to try. Can't wait for summer to be here where I can cook outside. Thanks very much for this lovely BBQ marinade. MaryMoh at http://www.keeplearningkeepsmiling.com
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Liz — January 28, 2011 @ 11:50 am
Great recipe! LOVE Giada. :)
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Rivki Locker (Ordinary Blogger) — January 28, 2011 @ 12:18 pm
This dish looks wonderful but I am most impressed with the photos. I have an impossible time getting pretty pictures of chicken. Those griddle marks really make this dish pretty and photogenic.
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wgfoodie — January 28, 2011 @ 2:52 pm
I LOVE balsamic bbq sauce. I wish it were summer already so we could fire up the grill and make this tonight. I know we could just as easily pull out our indoor grill but… it's just not the same ;)
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Christina — January 28, 2011 @ 4:07 pm
I'm so glad you posted this because I saw this recipe in her book and I thought "what does an Italian know about bbq sauce?" But if you say it's delicious (and your kids loved it too), then it's definitely worth making. Thanks!
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Joanne — January 28, 2011 @ 6:07 pm
I have to say, I have heard so many obscenely good things about this recipe…and from people who hate Giada as a general rule. So glad you decided to try it!
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beyondthepeel — January 28, 2011 @ 6:30 pm
Thank you for sharing. We don't often use BBQ sauce at our house because of the ketchup and all the sugar. I've made it from scratch a few times but it has always been really time consuming. This one is so easy. I love that you made the substitutions to reduce both of these ingredients from the sauce. We'll be giving this a try for sure. I'll be very happy to reintroduce BBQ sauce into our house again.
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Anne — January 28, 2011 @ 7:01 pm
I can't wait to try this! I don't keep ketchup in the house because it's incredibly high in sugar so until now, I've felt that i couldn't make BBQ sauce without that crucial ingredient. You're breaking down barriers for me:)
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Natalie @ Perrys' Plate — January 29, 2011 @ 12:08 am
Rivki – Thank you for the compliments! The biggest thing that improves photos of food (no matter what it is) is natural light. Followed closely by NO flash and either a macro lens or the macro setting on a point-and-shoot. Kind of hard to get natural light photos in the winter, though… Good luck!
beyondthepeel & Anne – I'm so happy that you appreciate the reduced sugar :) Balsamic vinegar is naturally kind of sweet, and somehow I feel better about relying on that as the sweetner.
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Paula — January 29, 2011 @ 4:43 pm
oh, this looks so delicious! I`m absolutely sure that`s really tasty!
Have a great time,
Paula
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Jolene - EverydayFoodie — January 30, 2011 @ 9:45 pm
My sister makes this all the time and always raves about it! I have yet to try it though, but now I think I have to.
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Lindsay — February 4, 2011 @ 8:56 pm
Hi, we've made several of your recipes and loved them! Especially the one for black bean tacos!! I was wondering if you could use the 'glaze' as a marinade. Could you just put all the ingredients and the chicken in a bag and let it sit for several hours or overnight? (Rather than cooking the mixture down and brushing it on the chicken). Thanks so much!
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Natalie @ Perrys' Plate — February 4, 2011 @ 10:13 pm
Lindsay – Hmm… I think you probably wouldn't get as intense of a flavor from the sauce if you didn't cook it down, but maybe marinating the chicken would remedy that. Give it a go and let me know how it turned out!
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Kirsten's Cooking — February 5, 2011 @ 10:49 pm
this is one of my all-time favorite recipes!
I, too, am skeptical of Giada – she's cute but some of her recipes sound a little sketchy.
This one, though, is a winner!
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Lindsey — January 2, 2012 @ 1:34 am
So today I told my husband, whenever I talk about Natalie, just assume I mean the girl who has the food blog that I love. You/your recipes have come up so often lately that I figure it will just be easier for him to assume the Natalie I’m talking about is you and not another Natalie that we know. Anyway, this is SO good and was actually easy to make. And the best part–ok, there are two best parts–first, Kurtis loved it and second, the only thing I had to buy was the tomato sauce, which doesn’t really count because normally we have some in the cupboard. THANK YOU for another success! (And I really am even more appreciative than normal because I took half of this to a family in our ward who I had never met before tonight and I always stress out about how the food is going to taste when I bring it to people. Oh, and this was even more stressful than normal because when I was asked to bring dinner I said yes, and then she told me the recipients had a bunch of food allergies and could not have gluten. I was in a panic, but thankfully I remembered that you had some gluten free recipes and this one stood out because of your top 10 post. Again, thanks a million!) P.S. If you haven’t already figured this out, my 11th grade English teacher wrote one of two comments on every single paper I turned in that year–1) Too verbose! 2) Be succinct! :)
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Natalie replied: — January 2nd, 2012 @ 2:43 am
I love hearing from you!! I’m so glad you have such good luck with the recipes on my site. That chicken is something that I go to when we have people over, so I agree… it was a good thing to take to someone else! Glad you liked it and I’m flattered to be THE Natalie in your conversations. Hehe.
P.S. I will never tell you to be succinct. When it comes to blog comments, the longer the better :)
P.P.S. Sweet… another convert to butterflied chicken!
Lindsey — January 2, 2012 @ 1:35 am
P.S. We’ve decided we will butterly our chicken from now on.
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