Description
A delicious Oven Baked BBQ Chicken recipe featuring juicy bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces baked in a tangy and sweet homemade barbecue sauce. This method ensures tender, flavorful chicken finished with a quick broil for caramelized perfection. Perfect served with classic southern sides like mashed potatoes, coleslaw, or cornbread.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Barbecue Sauce
- 1 cup ketchup or Australian/UK tomato sauce
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 4 tbsp brown sugar
- 2 tsp mustard powder
- 2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp fresh black pepper
- 1 cup water
Chicken
- 1.5 kg / 3 lb chicken thighs (bone-in, skin on), drumsticks or wings
- Fresh parsley, chives or finely chopped green onions, for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat Oven: Set your oven to 200°C (390°F) to prepare for baking the chicken.
- Prepare Sauce: In a ceramic or glass baking dish, thoroughly mix all the sauce ingredients except the water. Then stir in 1 cup of water to loosen the sauce.
- Coat Chicken: Add the chicken pieces to the baking dish and turn them to fully coat in the sauce. Place the chicken skin-side down in the dish.
- Bake Initial: Bake the chicken in the preheated oven for 20 minutes to start cooking and infusing flavor.
- Turn & Baste: Remove the chicken from the oven, turn the pieces over, and generously spoon more sauce over them to enhance flavor and moisture.
- Bake Further: Return the chicken to the oven and bake for an additional 30 minutes to ensure it is cooked through and tender.
- Optional Fat Skimming: Tilt the pan and spoon off any excess fat from the surface of the sauce if desired for a leaner dish.
- Broil/Grill Finish: Switch your oven to broil/grill on high. Spoon sauce over the chicken again, then place under the broiler for 2 to 3 minutes to caramelize the sauce and crisp the skin. Watch carefully to prevent burning.
- Garnish & Serve: Remove from oven, garnish with chopped fresh parsley, chives, or green onions, and serve immediately.
Notes
- For sauce substitutes: ketchup can be replaced with tomato sauce as used in Australia/UK, apple cider vinegar can be replaced with white wine, sherry, or champagne vinegar, or 2 tbsp regular white vinegar; onion powder can be replaced with garlic powder or 1 finely minced garlic clove.
- This recipe works best with bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces such as thighs, drumsticks, or wings. Boneless or breast chicken will require adjustments to the sauce and cooking time.
- Use a ceramic or glass baking dish or a metal pan lined with foil and parchment paper to make cleanup easier as the sauce can stick and require scrubbing.
- Adjust sauce thickness by adding water if too thick at the end or returning the pan to the oven briefly to thicken if too thin.
- Barbecue sauce recipe adapted from the Neely’s recipe on Food Network.
- Nutrition info assumes excess fat skimming and consumption of all sauce.
