Basic Grilled Thighs
For an everyday grilled meal I would say chicken is the king. I would also say that chicken thighs would be the crown jewels of the chicken. Thighs have a few things going for them, they’re cheap, readily available, and delicious when grilled. Here’s a quick way to cook a very forgiving protein and make it different enough each time to keep it interesting.
Cooker I Used:
Fuel Used:
Kingsford Charcoal aka “Blue Bag”
Total time:
1-2 Hours (Dry Brine)
30min (Cook)
Ingredients
Protein
Chicken Thighs (Boneless and skinless)
Optional Spices:
Your Favorite BBQ Rubs and Spices
Optional Sauces:
Your Favorite BBQ Sauce
Your Favorite Teriyaki Sauce
Time Line:
2 hours prior to cook
I start by prepping the meat, which means taking it out of taking it out of the package and trimming it up. For boneless skinless thighs, I cut the pieces of fat and excess bits that aren’t meat off each fillet. I’ll also add that you can buy bone in thighs and save some money, this works for those too!
To start the brine you want to dust each thigh with a light coat of kosher salt. Bag it up and throw it into the fridge to start the dry brine process. I’d leave it at least 1 hour, and wouldn’t go longer than 8 hours. I’ve gone as long as 24 hours on them, and they start to develop a strange texture after too much brining.
Once the prep and brine is complete, now is the fun part for me. Where I get to create.
I grab a good BBQ rub (or two!) and sprinkle them on for some flavoring. Remember, if there is a lot of salt in the rub use it sparingly. You will get a lot of bang for your buck after the dry brine process.
My favorite “naked” thighs would be either using Big Poppa’s Smokers “Money Rub” or Plowboys “Yardbird” rub.
The other option would be to use a sauce, if going with a sauce I will pour a little in the bag about 15-20 min before cooking to let it get on the meat. My personal favorite is the Soy Vay “Island Teriyaki” and I add toasted sesame seeds and crushed black pepper as well to the bag prior to grilling.
The Cook:
Start with a medium fire, and cook using indirect heat. I start with a 15 minute timer. Next I will start the sear with direct heat for about 3 minutes on both sides (if you opted to keep the skin on, I'd skip the skin side down and go about 5 minutes extra on the indirect timer. Remember to keep the lid down during both direct and indirect cooking. It’s important to use your senses during this time, if you start to see excess smoke or hear a fire raging inside the cooker open it up and take them off direct heat. Let the fire die down under a closed lid and then move the thighs back and resume the timers.
After you’ve done both sides for 3 minutes each, you should start to see some good color and char develop. I temp check them with my meat thermometer and I’m looking for 165F. If they are this temp or above you’re good, take them off and rest them for a few minutes. If they still look raw or are undercooked the fire is probably too small. Don’t worry, you got this! Read on...
Cook with the lid off from this point on, start a new timer and watch them. If at any time you start to see flames lick up and start hitting the thighs take special note. This could start snowballing into a large fire very soon. Use this to your advantage though. Flip the thighs around until you see the color and char level you like then move them to the indirect side (go about 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side). Take some temperature readings at this point in several locations. The thighs are a small cut of meat and you want to temp the thickest piece of it. I’m looking for 165F. If they haven’t hit that temp yet, just put the lid back on and let them go for another 5 minutes indirect. Temp check them again and they should be done, if not really close. Just repeat the 5 minute timers until they are finished.
Let them rest for another 5 minutes. For the boneless thighs, I like to slice them up before plating them, it makes for a nicer presentation.
TLDR Steps:
Trim
Dry Brine
Season and/or sauce
Cook
Slice and Eat!