Oven BBQ Chicken

[nettieplee]

I'm thinking of trying this for dinner tomorrow night. I figure I'll buy a cut up chicken, slather some bottled bbq sauce on it and bake it in the oven. Served with some baked beans and coleslaw it should remind us of summer (which needs to be done every now and then when you live in a place where the sun hasn't shined since Christmas Eve). Sounds simple right? Well....I've started really over thinking this. I've never done chicken this way before and I'm wondering if I should marinate it in the bbq sauce overnight, should I baste it with sauce while cooking, how long to cook as to not dry out the chicken, etc. So what can you all tell me? Anyone cooked chicken like this before - whats the best way?

Thanks!!

 

[jkath]

Okay, it's not in the oven, but have you ever tried the ever-so-simple bottle 'o BBQ sauce poured over chicken pieces in a crockpot? 3 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low and you're done. Another thought - if you want super easy clean up, buy a box of those crock pot liners (they look like big plastic baggies). The food cooks in them and then when you're done, you throw away the bag and your crockpot is clean!
(Due to the sugar in bbq sauce, I'm worried about the edges burning a bit in the oven, but maybe it wouldn't if it were covered....)

Lemonade would be a lovely complement to this meal, as would an apple pie!

Good luck!

 

[valnaples]

I usually season the skinless chicken pieces with Tony Chachere's Cajun/Creole Seasoning, bake them at 375 for about 30 minutes and then pour/brush on the barbeque sauce and finish baking for 15 minutes. Most barbeque sauces have a lot of sugar in them and it can burn & get all dried out if you put it on the chicken at the very beginning, I've found.

 

[Piccolina]

Jkath touched on an important point that I've encountered myself - the bbq sauce burning to the pan or foil in your pan. I've found that marinating the chicken in the sauce first does seem to help it adhere better to the chicken, and thus less slips off an dburns to the pane. Attempts at adding the sauce at some point during the cooking process have resulted in very watery sauce that sort of slides off the chicken.

Bbqing is a great route to go with bbq sauce coated pieces of chicken, and if you spray a little Pam for grills on before hand the chicken pieces shouldn't stick. A grill pan used in the oven can help too, if you don't have a bbq/wrong season for it/etc.

 

[letscook]

I do it that way alot. I usually will pour the bQ sauce over and let it marinate. Sometimes i skip that step. I place skin side down first and baked it covered and then the last 15 min I uncover and turn them skin side up and finish cooking uncovered. Nicely brown and moist. Yummy sounds good tonight for supper except all i have are chix, wings. Just as good.

 

[nettieplee]

Thanks for the responses. I totally didn't even think of my crockpot for some reason. I think I'm going to go with letscook's method though...marinate it overnight and then cook it covered tomorrow.