It has come to my attention that I haven’t featured a maple recipe since March. So let’s remedy that with a meaty recipe for from-scratch Maple Barbecue Chicken.
Yep, you create your own BBQ sauce for this recipe! It’s full of maple goodness with just the right balance of savory-sweet. You divvy up the sauce, using some to marinate the meat and reserving the rest for eating time.
Use this base recipe to cook the chicken however you want. Grill it. Roast it in your oven. Whatever gets the meat cooked and chewed and in your belly.
Maple makes everything better, right?
Modified from A Dash of Sanity.
Bready or Not: Maple BBQ Chicken Tenders
Make your own from-scratch maple barbecue sauce to marinate chicken breast tenders! Let the marinade work its magic for two hours to a day in advance, then grill the meat. Serve it with some sauce kept stashed separately in the fridge.
Ingredients
- 3 - 4 pounds chicken tenders
- 1/2 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 Tablespoon Worchester sauce
- 2 teaspoons ground mustard
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Place the chicken tenders in a sturdy gallon sealable bag. In a bowl, mix together all of the other ingredients. Pour enough of the sauce into the bag to coat the chicken; reserve the rest of the sauce for serving later. (If the sauce gets contaminated by the raw meat, boil it to make sure it's safe to eat.)
- Let the chicken marinate in the fridge for anywhere from 2 hours to a day.
- Heat up your grill [or, alternatively, bake it in your oven]. Grill the chicken at medium heat for 4 minutes, then turn to cook another 4 minutes, and longer as needed. Check for doneness by testing the temperature in a thick section; it should be at least 170-degrees.
- Serve immediately. Chicken is fantastic hot or cold, and can be frozen with sauce for later enjoyment, too.
- OM NOM NOM!
