BBQ pulled chicken: perfect for spreading on your baps

BBQ pulled chicken, if you please? This is our second competition entrant and my god I just want it so badly I’ve had to push my chair a few inches from my desk to compensate. Now, because there’s actually two recipes at play here, I’m awarding two entries! Just like my ideal Sunday. This is coming from the lovely Lisa-Leela!

Everyone who has submitted an entry, keep your eyes open! They’re starting to appear!

bbq pulled chicken

gorgeous and fresh BBQ sauce

Prep

Cook

Total

Yield 350 g

This is a thick, juicy BBQ sauce - if you're super anal, which I love the fact that'll appear on the Cubs' blog, you can syn the brown sugar. But come on.

Ingredients

  • ½ red onion, finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed (tip: use a mini grater if you don’t have a garlic press)
  • 1 level tbsp tomato purée
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
  • juice of ½ lemon
  • 1 level tsp Dijon mustard 
  • 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tsp chilli powder
  • few drops Tabasco sauce
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • salt & freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

  • Spray a small pan with whatever spray oil you like to use. On a medium heat sauté the onion until soft (about 5 mins) add garlic cook for about another minute
  • Reduce heat. Add tomato puree and cumin, mix for 1min. Add the canned tomatoes and all the remaining ingredients stir and cook gently until the sauce reduces and thickens to your liking (usually around 35 - 40 minutes for me)
  • Season to taste with salt and pepper
  • You can blend to make a smooth sauce or leave it as it is for a chunky bbq sauce. If you want to make a thinner sauce simply add water a spoon at a time when blending until you get the desired texture.
  • The sauce keeps in the fridge for 2 weeks and can be frozen for up to 3 months.
  • (Use half this sauce for Pulled Chicken recipe)
  • If you prefer a sweeter sauce you can add 2 tablespoons brown sugar when cooking but that will increase syns/calories.

Notes

Courses sauces

Cuisine twochubbycubs

And of course, once you’ve made the BBQ sauce, you can go right ahead and make the pulled chicken!

bbq pulled chicken

bbq pulled chicken

BBQ pulled chicken

Cook

Total

Yield 4 servings

Now you have the BBQ sauce, you're going to use it to make an amazing pulled chicken, which you can load into sandwiches, burgers or whatever the hell you want!

Ingredients

  • 900g boneless skinless chicken (you can use a whole chicken, remove thighs, drumsticks and breasts, cut breasts into 2 or 3 pieces or use just chicken thighs, or a mix of thighs and breasts)
  • spray oil
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1tsp smoked paprika  (smoked paprika gives a much different taste to sweet and is more suitable for a barbecue flavour)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 175g homemade BBQ sauce  

Instructions

  • heat the oven to 170°c.
  • spray the base of a heavy pot (with a lid) with whatever spray oil you use. Place over medium heat. Cook the onion and garlic for 5 minutes or until quite soft. Add the smoked paprika and stir. Add the chicken pieces and mix well. Add salt and a couple of generous grinds of black pepper.
  • set 2 tbsp of the BBQ sauce aside and pour the remaining sauce into the pot. Simmer. Turn off the heat.
  • cover the pot with a heavy lid and put in the oven for an hour and a half.  When ready move the chicken to a large bowl leaving sauce in the pot. Use two forks to finely pull the chicken apart.
  • while you’re shredding the chicken, put any sauce thats left in the pan onto the stove over high heat and add the 2 tbsp that you saved earlier. Bring to a boil for about 5-10mins to reduce. Pour this thickened sauce over the pulled chicken and stir. Taste and season if needed.
  • serve with Broghies/buns/thins/slims/coleslaw/salad/homemade oven chips or whatever you fancy. Add extra barbecue sauce on the side if you like.

Courses burgers

Cuisine BBQ

Yum, right? Fan of more than pulling chicken? Pulling yourself off doesn’t count, lads. But if you want more pulled ideas, how about:

Enjoy!

J