23 Grilled Chicken Recipes to Devour on July Fourth

20190618-grilled-turkish-chicken-wings-vicky-wasik-15

Grilled chicken doesn't have to be stringy and flavorless—use the right technique and it'll be perfectly juicy and still have shatteringly crispy skin. And, of course, it'll taste great, too. To show you how it's done, we've rounded up 23 of our favorite grilled chicken recipes, from a simple spatchcocked bird and Thai-style satay to homemade chicken sausages with roasted garlic and feta. Need more chicken grilling inspiration? Check out the rest of our favorite grilled chicken recipes for whole birds, wings, skewers and more.

Grilled Butterflied Chicken

J. Kenji López-Alt

Spatchcocking works just as well for grilling as it does for roasting—I never cook a whole bird any other way. To cook the chicken, we use a two-step process, starting with the chicken skin-side up on the cooler side of the grill before finishing it over the coals to crisp up the skin.

Get the recipe for Grilled Butterflied Chicken
The Best Barbecue Chicken

J. Kenji López-Alt

Bigger birds aren't well-suited to conventional grilling because it's hard to cook them through evenly. Barbecue is the way to go for roasting large chickens—the low-and-slow technique cooks them gently and imbues them with tons of smoke. For extra flavor, we like to brush the chicken with barbecue sauce toward the end of cooking.

Get the recipe for The Best Barbecue Chicken
Thai-Style Grilled Chicken (Gai Yang)

J. Kenji López-Alt

Without question, the best grilled chicken I've ever had was on a little island in the Gulf of Thailand. In a country full of wonderful grilled meat, the chicken stands out. The secret is marinating the meat with fish sauce and sugar, which helps create an intense, caramelized crust on the grill.

Get the recipe for Thai-Style Grilled Chicken (Gai Yang)
Thai-Style Chicken Satay With Peanut-Tamarind Dipping Sauce

J. Kenji López-Alt

In American Thai restaurants, satay is the grilled chicken dish you're most likely to find on the menu. Our version is marinated with coriander, white pepper, palm sugar, garlic, ginger, shallot, turmeric, lemongrass, and a handful of other ingredients, and served with a tamarind-peanut dipping sauce.

Get the recipe for Thai-Style Chicken Satay With Peanut-Tamarind Dipping Sauce

Continue to 5 of 23 below.
Japanese Chicken Skewers With Scallion (Negima Yakitori)

J. Kenji López-Alt

The average yakitori joint will serve dozens of cuts of chicken, but at home, it's easiest to stick with boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which are good for grilling because they're harder to overcook than breasts. These skewers are super easy—just alternate the chicken with big pieces of scallion, grill, and glaze with teriyaki sauce. If you want a riff on the same theme, you could also try grilling up some skewers with nanbansu, a sweet-sour sauce that can pull double duty as a dip and a marinade.

Get the recipe for Japanese Chicken Skewers With Scallion (Negima Yakitori)
Grilled Chicken and Peach Saltimbocca Skewers

Morgan Eisenberg

If you've got your skewers and chicken out already, you could also give this combination of chicken, sage, prosciutto, and peach a try. The meat and fruit take a brief bath in a white wine marinade, which adds flavor even as it helps the chicken retain its moisture on the grill, and that same marinade gets reduced and served alongside as a dipping sauce.

Get the recipe for Grilled Chicken and Peach Saltimbocca Skewers
Planked Chicken Quarters With Lemon and Herb

Joshua Bousel

If you're not going to cook with wood, then next best option is to cook on wood. Here, we cook chicken over wood planks set on the grates of the grill to give it a little bit of wood flavor. We use a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, and fresh herbs to both marinate and baste the chicken to keep it moist.

Get the recipe for Planked Chicken Quarters With Lemon and Herb
Jerk Chicken

J. Kenji López-Alt

The marinade for Jamaican jerk chicken is pretty straightforward—allspice, thyme, and Scotch bonnet peppers will get you that classic jerk flavor, and habaneros make fine replacements for the Scotch bonnets. Unfortunately, true jerk chicken is smoked over hard-to-find pimento wood. The good news? Using bay leaves instead works remarkably well.

Get the recipe for Jerk Chicken

Continue to 9 of 23 below.
Grilled Chicken With Za'atar

J. Kenji López-Alt

Moving from the Caribbean to the Middle East, this recipe seasons grilled chicken with the earthy spice blend za'atar. I grew up eating the store-bought version of this mix of sesame seeds, sumac, and other herbs, but our homemade version is worth the small amount of extra effort.

Get the recipe for Grilled Chicken With Za'atar
Greek-Style Grilled Chicken With Oregano, Garlic, Lemon, and Olive Oil

J. Kenji López-Alt

Sprinkling chicken with lemon juice as it grills is a typical Greek technique that sounds great until you realize that the juice keeps the skin from crisping up until long after the meat overcooks. To get the same flavors without sacrificing the quality of the chicken, we make a lemon-heavy vinaigrette and use it as both a marinade and sauce.

Get the recipe for Greek-Style Grilled Chicken With Oregano, Garlic, Lemon, and Olive Oil
Peruvian-Style Grilled Chicken With Green Sauce

J. Kenji López-Alt

The chicken itself in this recipe is nothing too special—just a spatchcocked bird rubbed with salt, cumin, paprika, pepper, garlic, vinegar, and oil before grilling. The real magic of Peruvian grilled chicken is in the spicy-yet-cooling green sauce, which is made with a mayo and sour cream base and flavored with jalapeños, cilantro, and aji amarillo pepper paste. Make extra, because you're going to want to put it on everything.

Get the recipe for Peruvian-Style Grilled Chicken With Green Sauce
The Best Juicy Grilled Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts

Joshua Bousel

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts tend to be bland and dry, but that doesn't keep them from being one of the most popular cuts of meat in America. If you're going to give chicken breasts space on the grill, treat them right by pounding them to a uniform thickness, brining them, and using an instant-read thermometer to avoid overcooking them.

Get the recipe for The Best Juicy Grilled Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts

Continue to 13 of 23 below.
Tandoor-Style Grilled Chickens or Cornish Hens

J. Kenji López-Alt

Tandoori chicken is cooked at a high temperature, which leads to a risk of the meat drying out. Our solution? Just replace the chicken with smaller, faster-cooking Cornish game hens. Our tandoor-style marinade is made with yogurt, paprika, cumin, turmeric, and other spices—if you want that vibrant red color you find in restaurants, you can add achiote powder or food coloring.

Get the recipe for Tandoor-Style Grilled Chickens or Cornish Hens
Grilled Spicy Chicken Wings With Soy and Fish Sauce

Shao Z.

Despite the name, these chicken wings don't taste like seafood—the fish sauce is there to add extra savoriness to the meat. It's joined in the marinade by Asian ingredients like Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, and as many dried red chili peppers as you can handle. A two-zone grill gets the wings juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside.

Get the recipe for Grilled Spicy Chicken Wings With Soy and Fish Sauce
Grilled Hoisin-Glazed Chicken Wings

Joshua Bousel

If you want your grilled chicken wings to be extra crispy, sprinkle them with baking powder and salt and rest them overnight in the refrigerator. This both dries out the surface of the wings and raises the pH, which improves browning. Once you have perfectly cooked wings, you can sauce them however you want—here we opt for a soy sauce, honey, and hoisin glaze.

Get the recipe for Grilled Hoisin-Glazed Chicken Wings
Grilled Cajun Chicken Wings

Joshua Bousel

If you're going to do the air-drying step of preparing chicken wings, you can also add seasonings to the mix—for these Cajun-inspired wings, we mix paprika, garlic powder, thyme, oregano, cayenne, and more in with the salt and baking powder. After grilling, we toss the wings in a Buffalo-style sauce that replaces the usual Frank's with Louisiana-style hot sauce.

Get the recipe for Grilled Cajun Chicken Wings

Continue to 17 of 23 below.
Roasted Garlic and Feta Chicken Sausage

Joshua Bousel

These sausages—made with juicy chicken thigh meat, sweet roasted garlic, and tangy feta cheese—are a fun variation on the hot dogs or brats you might expect to find on the grill come good weather. We also add shallots, oregano, vinegar, and lemon juice, but in moderate quantities so as not to cover up the flavor of the chicken.

Get the recipe for Roasted Garlic and Feta Chicken Sausage
Buffalo Chicken Sausages

Joshua Bousel

Mixing ground chicken with Buffalo sauce is a recipe for disaster—all that butter makes for sausages prone to exploding on the grill. We get around this by using Frank's Buffalo Wings Sauce, which is made with "natural butter type flavor." The sauce is a little on the bland side, so we add extra Frank's and cayenne pepper to give it more of an edge.

Get the recipe for Buffalo Chicken Sausages
Korean-Style Fire Chicken (Buldak) With Cheese

Vicky Wasik

This Korean bar food is perfect for a beer-filled cookout. Chicken thighs marinated in a spicy gochujang-based sauce are grilled until nicely charred. The crisp thighs are then covered in melty mozzarella, which cuts through the spicy-sweet marinade.

Get the recipe for Korean-Style Fire Chicken (Buldak) With Cheese
Grilled Tarragon-Mustard Chicken Skewers

Morgan Eisenberg

It doesn't take a lot of time or ingredients to turn chicken from boring to bright, flavorful, and exciting. The marinade for these skewers combines Dijon mustard, lemon juice, honey, and tarragon. The honey caramelizes over the grill, while the lemon and tarragon keep the skewers tasting fresh and balanced.

Get the recipe for Grilled Tarragon-Mustard Chicken Skewers

Continue to 21 of 23 below.
Grilled Tandoori Chicken Patties With Jalapeño-Mint Yogurt Sauce

Morgan Eisenberg

These grilled tandoori chicken patties are a great alternative to the beef or chicken burgers people normally choose to do at Independence Day cookouts. Inspired by tandoori chicken, we toss ground chicken with yogurt and Indian spices, then grill the patties until they're lightly charred. Before serving, we top the patties with a tangy yogurt sauce and wrap them in toasted flatbread.

Get the recipe for Grilled Tandoori Chicken Patties With Jalapeño-Mint Yogurt Sauce
Hawaiian Huli Huli Grilled Chicken Wings

Morgan Eisenberg

These sticky, sweet, and smoky wings are inspired by the flavors that are often used in Hawaii. They marinate in a mixture of pineapple juice, soy sauce, light brown sugar, and sriracha, along with a few other flavor-packed ingredients. Once the wings are grilled to golden-brown, with nice charred bits from the flames, they're showered with thinly sliced scallions and served with grilled pineapple.

Get the recipe for Hawaiian Huli Huli Grilled Chicken Wings
Grilled Turkish-Style Chicken Wings

These wings rely on a unique, super efficient kebab set-up for your grill. By balancing the skewers on bricks set on either side of the charcoal, we're able to cook the wings more evenly and get a nice fire-kissed crust on the skin. This recipe involves a Turkish kebab shop–inspired blend of hot Turkish pepper paste, olive oil, spices, parsley, garlic, and pomegranate molasses, which doubles as a marinade and dipping sauce.

Get the recipe for Grilled Turkish-Style Chicken Wings

23 Grilled Chicken Recipes to Devour on July Fourth

From whole chickens to kebabs, wings, and juicy thighs, these grilled chicken recipes won't disappoint.

More Serious Eats Recipes