Some Saucy Chicken

Another chicken dish! This was made with the remainder of the package of drumsticks that we used for the chicken and mango sauce and is our second new recipe of the year. The original recipe can be found here on Allrecipes.

The Recipe

Baked Chicken in Sweet BBQ Sauce

1/2 Cup Barbecue Sauce

1/4 Cup Soy Sauce

1/4 Cup Red Wine Vinegar

1/4 Cup Maple Syrup

1 Tablespoon Sriracha

1 Tablespoon Mustard Powder

1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder

1 Teaspoon Onion Powder

2 Teaspoons Chili Powder

2 Teaspoons Cumin

6 Chicken Drumsticks

1 Tablespoon Cornstarch

1 Cup Cold Water

Mix together everything but the chicken, cornstarch, and water in a bowl to make your marinade. Place the chicken and the marinade in a zip top bag and massage the chicken so it is well coated. Let sit in the fridge for at least a few hours or overnight. When ready to cook, place the chicken and marinade in a baking dish and bake in a 400 degree oven until the chicken is done (internal temperature is 160 degrees - about 40 mins). While the chicken is cooking, mix the cornstarch and water together. When the chicken is done, remove the chicken pour the remaining sauce in the baking dish into a small sauce pan. Bring this liquid to a simmer and then add the cornstarch slurry. Continue to simmer until the sauce is thickened. Spoon over the chicken and serve.

End Results and Final Thoughts

While it has a long list of ingredients, it's actually really easy and we had everything on hand. I didn't change much from the original recipe - just used red wine vinegar instead of red wine (because we didn't feel like opening a bottle of wine just for this), used a little less chili powder (other reviews said that much chili powder could overwhelm the flavor), and added some Sriracha (because it's delicious). And we really liked the results. The sauce is sweet, but does have a little kick to it. I wouldn't complain if it were hotter, but I do agree that much more chili powder would be too much - if I were to add heat to this recipe it wouldn't be that way. But maybe a little cayenne or adobo would do the trick? Anyway, this was really good on chicken and could probably be made into a good dipping sauce (just skip the whole baking thing and go straight to thickening) to serve with onion rings or chicken fingers or something. We ate this with some peas and garlic bread but for some reason desperately wanted some mashed potatoes to go with it. We would make this again, especially considering we'll probably always have (at least most of) the ingredients on hand. But we'll be sure to make some mashed potatoes too.