Fire up the grill this Labor Day Holiday and treat your guests with this delicious Grilled Chicken Diavolo Recipe. The chicken is marinated in a perfect blend of spices and grilled to perfection. Controlling the grill temperature is key when grilling the chicken; you have to keep the primary burner on high to keep the grilling temperature high enough to create the smoke that is provided by the wood chip packet; but on the other side of the grill you want to keep the temperature low enough so the chicken doesn’t cook too quickly.
I have a 4 burner gas grill and found that I needed 2 burners on high with the other 2 set at low to medium. Just play around with it a little bit and try to maintain a covered temperature of around 400F.
If you using a charcoal grill I think it would be a lot easier to create the smoke needed because of the more direct contact to the heat.
Give this one a try, its well worthy the effort, and the results are delicious grilled Diavolo chicken. Adapted from Cook’s Country Magazine. Enjoy
- 1 bone in chicken (cut up into pieces)
- ½ cup grape seed or olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves (minced)
- 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary (chopped)
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 4 teaspoons lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 2½ teaspoons Salt (divided)
- 1 cup wood chips (a good handful)
- In a medium size bowl mix together the oil, garlic, lemon zest, rosemary, red pepper flakes, sugar, paprika and pepper. Reserve ¼ cup of oil mixture and set aside. Mix 2¼ teaspoons salt into the oil mixture in the bowl, pat chicken dry, and place into a 1 gallon reseal able bag; pour the oil mixture over the top. Marinate, refrigerated, for at least 1 hour but no longer than 24. Turn the bag occasionally to distribute the marinade.
- Soak wood chips in water for about 15 minutes before starting the grill. Wrap in heavy duty aluminum foil and cut slits in the top to vent the smoke out.
- Place the wood chip packet on the grate over the primary burner of the grill.
- Turn all burners to high and preheat until wood chips start to smoke. Turn primary burner to medium and all other burners to low. (this will vary with different grills , you want to maintain a temperature of around 400F, for my grill I had to set the primary burner and the one next to it to medium, and the rest of the burners to low-experiment a little bit, but you don’t want the burners under the chicken to be too high.)
- Remove the chicken from the marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Lightly oil the grill grates and place the chicken skin side down on the cooler side of the grill. Grill chicken covered until side being grilled is light brown, turn and continue cooking covered until internal temperature reaches 155F for the white meat, and 170F for the dark meat. Move chicken to hot side of grill and continue grilling covered until golden brown. (Internal temp should be 165 for breast meat-175 for legs and thighs) remove from the grill and lightly tent with aluminum foil; let rest for 5-10 minutes.
- While chicken is resting heat the reserved oil mixture in a small sauce pan until garlic starts to brown and mixture is fragrant; remove from heat and stir in lemon juice and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
- Drizzle the sauce over the chicken and serve.
This was beyond good . I hid some in the fridge from my boyfriend so he wouldn’t eat all of it. lol!!