As promised, here is the start-to-finish rundown on how to do the whole “crispy chicken dipped in spicy sauce” thing. And yes, I am fully aware that the title sucks. I started with “How To Make Dipped Chicken” but that was misleading … you don’t “make” the dipped chicken, you make the chicken and then dip it. If I really wanted to be accurate then “How To Make Sauce And Then Cook Chicken And Then Dip That Chicken In The Sauce” would be the way to go. Unfortunately, most people don’t have monitors wide enough to actually read that. So in a half-assed compromise between legibility and vague accuracy I am sticking with “How To Dip Chicken”. Deal with it.

With that out of the way, let’s run this thing down. The recipes in play here are the True North Chicken Rub, the Basic Chicken For Dipping, and the Diamondstar Halo dipping sauce. If you are not familiar with and of these now is the time to follow the links and check them out. The timeline below is what I consider ideal – yes, sometimes you have to compress things time-wise, I get that. But for this one … make the effort to start it a full day early. The result is worth the extra hassle of planning your meal 24 hours in advance. Trust me.

24 HOURS AHEAD

Make sure you have enough of the True North Chicken Rub

Make a batch of Diamondstar Halo sauce

While that cools, toss your chicken pieces with the rub

Put the sauce and the tossed chicken into the fridge. Wash your hands. And wait for tomorrow.

90 MINUTES BEFORE EATING

Take the chicken out of the fridge. Dredge the chicken pieces with flour and put them on a rack to rest for 30 minutes. Pre-heat your oven / barbeque pit / roaster / whatever to 175 degrees C (350 Fahrenheit if you are being retro).

Strain your sauce – you want to get the bits of sage and rosemary out of there now. They have done their work, from this point on all they can do is get bitter from being reheated. The easiest way to do this is to strain it right into the pot you are going to heat it up in.

60 MINUTES BEFORE EATING

Put the chicken (on a rack) in your cooker of choice and let ‘er rip. If you remember to do so, turn the chicken once at the 30 minute mark.

5 MINUTES BEFORE EATING

Heat the sauce. You don’t want it to boil (that would be bad bad bad) but you want to get it very hot.

ZERO HOUR

Pull out the chicken. As you serve it, dunk each piece completely in the sauce. Just a quick in and out, you want to coat it, not to soak it. Let the extra drip off for a couple of seconds (as long as it takes to say “drip drip drip” is probably ideal) and plate it up. Serve it on a pile of rice if you are eating indoors (the sauce dripping into the rice is heaven) or just plate it beside a pile of really good plain potato chips or nacho chips if you are feeling casual.

Eat. With your fingers. Then get ready to be dipping more pieces, because people are going to want seconds. And thirds. Keep the sauce hot and ready to go until you are sure everyone is done. And remember – only dip pieces as you are about to serve them.

THE AFTERMATH

This is one of those deals where it is just as easy to make a lot as a little. So make a lot. Let any leftover chicken pieces cool completely and store them in the fridge. Let the sauce cool completely and put it back in its jar and stick that in the fridge too. When you want another meal, heat however much chicken you want in an oven (not a microwave) at 175C/350F for about 20 minutes loosely wrapped in foil, then open the foil and heat for 10 minutes more. Heat the sauce up and once again just dip the pieces you are about to eat. The sauce can re-cool and re-store and re-heat as many times as you require.

Now. Stop reading and eat some chicken. When you are done I would appreciate it if you take a moment and let me know what you think.

Enjoy.

This is a basic coated chicken that is a perfect starting point for your adventures and experimentation in dipping. It’s easy to make, is wickedly versatile, and can be cooked in pretty much anything that offers an option for indirect heat. You can use a good ol’ Weber kettle, your oven (yes, I said oven), or something that is built just for this sort of task like a Big Green Egg. You want to use a clean fire here – you are roasting, not smoking. A plain charcoal fire would be your best bet, you only want to use a wood fire if you really know how to control the smoke and (in this case) keep it to a minimum.

If you are unsure, then do your first batch in the oven – this works really well in the oven. Everyone can play on this one, and you will be glad you did. Besides the aforementioned dipping, this chicken is a great thing to have in your back pocket as a go-to technique for any time you need a big mound of crispy tasty crunchy juicy bird.

Total prep time is about 10 minutes, cooking time is about one hour. Ready? Let’s go.
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So a handful of people have written in with questions about the whole dipping thing. Never fear – I’ve got your back on this one. Over the next couple of days I’ll hook you up with a foolproof way to make some chicken that is perfect for dipping, and then show you exactly what the hell I am talking about.

Stay tuned.

This started out as a quest for a dipping sauce for chicken, and ended with a super simple bit of liquid love that you can dip damn near anything into with delicious results. The name, if you were wondering, is a reference to the old T-Rex song “Get It On” (the original, please, not that defective Power Station remake) and specifically the line “you’re dirty and sweet, oh yeah.” This sauce is dirty and sweet at the same time – it’s as sweet as your grade 9 girlfriend and it’s as dirty and skanky as that nasty Kate Gosselin chick.

If you were wondering, no, you don’t have to play the song while you cook this. But it doesn’t hurt, either. Marc Bolan was a genius.

So – you may not know that “dipped” is a classic way to serve fried or roasted chicken. And I don’t mean dipped in little fork-bites at the table (a la Swiss Pigeon), i mean dipped as whole pieces in sauce when those pieces are just hot out of the oil or the oven. If you have never had chicken this way – a method that was inspiration for the first “buffalo wings” – then you are missing out on one of the great taste explosions of our time. But don’t stop there – and don’t shy away from making this if you aren’t planning on piece-cooked chicken. I have been dunking and/or exposing all sorts of things to this little concoction, and when push comes to shove you can pair this with pretty much any meat that is served hot and has any sort of salt in it’s seasoning profile.

Best of all, this is super simple. It has a a mere four ingredients (if you are like me and count this as one ingredient) and takes 5 minutes to make. Full details, some ideas on use, and random ranting after the jump.

Let’s get saucy!
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Okay – first things first. I realize that “Chicken Shakeys” is a terrible name, but the problem is this: Until about a day ago, these things had no name at all. I have been making them for pretty much ever, but there was never a name beyond “those chicken wing things” and when I got around to taking pictures and getting ready to put the recipe up here, I realized that a name was probably in order. So I went with “Chicken Shakeys” because (a) you do shake them at one point, and (b) the great Jim “Shakey” Hunt could eat more chicken wings at a press box buffet than anyone else on the planet. But the name is definitely not set in stone, and if you can think of something better, I am all ears. In fact, if you do come up with a name and I adopt it, I will name another recipe down the road after you. So get your thinking bibs on and see what you can do.

In the meantime, on with the show.

This is a kind of messy (during the preparation) and somewhat fidgety (during the preparation) but generally simple (during the cooking) take on chicken wings that will really impress your guests as either a side or an appetizer. These look cool, are fun to eat, and taste like greasy heaven on a stick. And, just for extra awesomeness, there is bacon. When you are done, you get what amounts to savory chicken and bacon lollipops with all kinds of layers of sweet and smoky flavour, and if you can eat just one of these then you either have ludicrous amounts of willpower or no taste buds at all.

Sorry, grill-heads, this one needs smoke and no direct heat, so you are on the sidelines for this one. Everyone else, stand by for some serious yum.
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One more recipe to get you going here.  While the vast majority of barbeque spice comes from rubs instead of saucing – the cooking process is so long that most sauces end up burning or hardening – there is still a place for sauces, usually in either finishing or serving.  You will find that most serious barbeque cooks have a different sauce for each kind of meat – like rubs, there are different flavour points that tend to work best with different textures and tastes – but I have been experimenting with a single “top level” sauce that you can then finish in different ways for whatever meat you happen to be thinking about using it with.  The advantage here comes from the fact that – unlike rubs, where you just mix ‘em and put them on a shelf somewhere – you need to invest some cooking time here and you need to store the finished product in the fridge.  Having a single sauce that you can then drive off in different directions helps to maximize the return on both of these requirements.

This mix is for a single load, about two full mason jars worth.  If you are having a big cook or have the fridge space to spare, just double everything for a bigger batch.

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This rub works for pretty much any chicken part or recipe that involves indirect heat. However, you probably don’t want to use this in a grilling situation, since the brown sugar will just burn. Mix everything thoroughly and store it in an air-tight container. Be sure to use this one liberally – the more the merrier.
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