Barely a Recipe- Barbecue Chicken

Sometimes I love recipes with lots of steps.  Recipes that rely on careful preparation and a lot of technique.  These recipes let me use my knife skills, practice techniques, and build flavors in multiple ways.  These recipes are weekend recipes, company recipes, and recipes that I play with on vacation days-to me a vacation is spending all day in the kitchen.

There are other times that I need a quick throw-togehter-but-still-taste-good recipe.  The kind of recipe that lets me cook automatically without any fuss.  In less than 15 minutes I can go from getting home to getting food on the table, or in a thermos for my Sous-Chef to eat on the road to activities.  These recipes I call "barely a recipe", because there isn't much, if any, measuring, and I can grab what I have on hand to complete the meal. Any prep and cooking technique is so minimal that it is all automatic, even for an infrequent cook.  The more you cook the faster your prep time gets, but these are seriously fast.

Rotisserie Chicken, BBQ Sauce, Garlic & Onion

My barely a recipe barbecue chicken is one of these recipes. All you need is a rotisserie chicken, BBQ sauce, garlic and onions.  A note on rotisserie chickens:  I always use Costco's chickens.  They are gluten free, fresh, and taste great.  If you don't have a Costco by you (or a rotisserie chicken handy) you can simply sub in precooked chicken of any kind to equal about 1-2 lbs, or 2-3 chicken breasts.  If you are gluten-free, or have other dietary restrictions, check the ingredient list on your BBQ sauce.  If you feel like adding spices; paprika, chipotle or adobo, or cracked pepper would all be good here, you can, but this is good without any additional spices as well.

The thing that will take you the longest is butchering (read; cutting up) the chicken.  This gets a lot faster with practice, and can be done ahead of time so all you have to do is grab the cut up chicken out of the fridge.  Even easier; Costco sells their chicken already pre-cooked and diced.

Cut up rotisserie chicken.

 Step 1: Cut up the rotisserie chicken.  I find the only part of the bird I don't use are the ends of the wings.  Remove the skin and rough chop the chicken.

Skin removed and cut up chicken

Step 2:  Dice two small, or one medium, onions and two cloves of garlic

Step 3: Heat olive oil over medium high heat in a large nonstick pan, and add onions.  Stir frequently until beginning to brown.  (reduce heat if needed)

Step 4: Add garlic and heat for about 45 seconds, stirring a few times.

Step 5: Add chicken.  Stir and let chicken brown slightly.

Tongs work really well for this dish!

Step 6: Add BBQ sauce.  Stir, turn heat down and simmer for about 5 minutes until heated through.  Use enough BBQ sauce to coat the chicken well. I used about 2/3 of the bottle.

That is it!  Serve along with cheese bread, veggies, rice, or whatever you like to eat with BBQ chicken.  If you want to add additional seasonings add them after you have mixed in the BBQ sauce.  Super quick, super easy, barely a recipe.

Enjoy!