Can I Cook A Whole Chicken On A Gas Bbq
Insert an instant read thermometer into the thickest part of the breast and check for a final temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead of using an instant read thermometer, you may alternatively cut into the thickest portion of the chicken with a paring knife to ensure that there is no visible pink flesh within.
How Long And At What Temperature Do You Grill Chicken
Preheat a gas grill to medium-high heat, about 350-400 degrees Fahrenheit, before cooking. Grill the chicken on a lightly greased grill surface. Close the cover and cook for 8 minutes, or until the bottoms are browned and sear marks appear on them. Cook for another 7-10 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 165° F, after rotating the chicken and covering it with a tight-fitting lid.
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The temperature of your grill should be approximately 350 degrees Fahrenheit in its whole. This ensures that your chicken will be juicy and tasty from beginning to end! Check the temperature of your chicken breast while it cooks by inserting a good internal thermometer into the thickest section of the breast.
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How Do You Cook Thick Chicken Breast On The Grill
Close the cover of your preheated grill and place the chicken breasts on top of it. The lid of your grill must be kept covered while your chicken cooks to ensure that no heat escapes throughout the cooking process. Grill your chicken breast for 6-8 minutes on one side, depending on how thick it is. After 6-8 minutes, turn the chicken breast over and cook for another 6-8 minutes on the other side.
Common Grilled Chicken Mistakes

Even though it’s a cookout classic, chicken can be tough to get right on the grill. How do you know when it’s done? When should you slather on sauce? What temperature should you cook it at? We consulted the good people of the BA Test Kitchen for solutions to the most common mistakes people make. Read on to crown yourself the king or queen of chicken on barbie. –Danielle Walsh
Not Starting with a Good BirdIt should be antibiotic and hormone free at the very least. If the yardstrutter was raised right, then chances are that it will taste good.
Forgetting the SeasoningMake sure you sprinkle it with salt and pepper before you throw it on the grill.
Cooking it at Too High a TemperatureIf you cook the chicken on too hot a grill, the skin will burn before the flesh cooks. Medium-low is the best temperature on a charcoal grill, and medium on a gas grill. This way, you’ll crisp the skin and avoid flareups.
Drying Out Skinless, Boneless ChickenDark meat on the bone is more flavorful and will stay juicier on the grill. But if you’re cooking skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cook them on medium for a charcoal grill and medium high for a gas grill. Just watch it carefully and take it off a minute before it’s cooked through .
–Hunter Lewis and Janet McCracken
Now get grillin’. Here are ten of our favorite grilled chicken recipes.
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Cooking Whole Chicken Breasts
These days, chicken breasts are huge. If you buy a plain, boneless, skinless chicken breast at the meat counter, it’s not uncommon for the piece to tip the scales at three-quarters of a pound or 12 ounces. Trying to cook a behemoth like that is difficult by the time the middle is fully done, the outside tends to be dry .
One solution is to slice it lengthwise to produce two flatter chicken cutlets. This is far easier than trying to pound a chicken breast flat with a meat mallet, which will mash it to a pulp.
What Is The Temp For Chicken Breast
Insert an instant read thermometer into the thickest area of the breast youre aiming for a final temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit on the thermometer reading. Instead of using an instant read thermometer, you may alternatively cut into the thickest section of the chicken with a paring knife to ensure there is no pink flesh showing.
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What To Serve With Grilled Chicken
Grilled chicken is a healthy, delicious main course to serve by itself-but there are tons of ways to dress it up, too. You can put grilled chicken in just about anything: sliced on top of salads, stuffed into sandwiches, shredded for chicken soups or skewered on a kabob. Or top the dish off with a heaping pile of grilled veggies and youve got yourself dinner!
How Long Do You Grill Chicken Breasts For
This is the biggest question that I get. It really does end up depending on how thick your chicken breasts are. If you flattened them, as discussed, theyre going to need about 4 minutes per side over direct medium-high heat . If your grill doesnt have a thermometer, heres how to find out what temperature its at.
After 4 minutes, you flip them over and do the other side for 4 minutes. This is going to get you nice parallel grill marks on your chicken. If you want crosshatched grill marks, after the first 2 minutes, turn the breasts 90 degrees and cook for 2 more minutes. Then flip and do the same thing on the other side, 2 minutes then turn, then 2 more minutes. But note that the crosshatched ones wont be as dark as the parallel ones. I therefore prefer to just do the 4 minutes per side without turning.
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Serving This Grilled Chicken Breast
We like to dice the chicken for tacos, bowls, and/or salads. Or if were feeling really hungry, we make big as yo face burritos a la Chuys Tex-Mex, one of our favorite Austin restaurants. We stuff them with refried beans, diced chicken, cheese, and smother with queso. Their boom boom sauce is also a great choice.
Im betting you have the Taco Tuesday side dishes down by now. But for a side dish you can make on the Traeger, check out our Smoked Charro Beans.
How Long Do I Grill Chicken
When the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit , the chicken is done. 165oF is the safe internal temperature for all cuts of meat, including white meat such as chicken breasts and wings and dark meat such as drumsticks and thighs. This temperature is consistent regardless of the cooking method, cooking temperature, or cut of meat.
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Key : Use A Thermapen
A Thermapen® Mk4 is essential in finding the lowest temperature in the meat. Visually gauging the thickest part of the meat wont necessarily give you the thermal center where that lowest point will be. The ability to take the temperature quickly in several places will help you know if you chicken is cooked safely and properly. If youre doing a lower, slower cook, a leave-in probe thermometer like the ChefAlarm® can be used to track the temperature, but you will still need a Thermapen to check the thermal canter to ensure safety.
Brine Your Chicken Breast For Extra Moisture

Brining is the next important step to avoid horribly dry grilled chicken breast. I recommend catching up with Kenji’s explanation of the science behind brining, but for these purposes, you just need to know that salt alters the proteins in the meat in such a way that they retain moisture better when cooked.
That retaining-moisture part is key, as it provides some assurance that the meat will remain juicy even if it’s a tad overdone, and it’ll be even better if cooked correctly. You really want this added protection when cooking chicken breasts, and there’s really no reason to skip it, since the brine takes just a minute to put together and the chicken needs only about 30 minutes of briningwhich just happens to be about the amount of time it takes to get a charcoal grill going.
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Grilled Chicken Breast Marinades
The recipe card below includes a Mexican-inspired marinade we like to use for making grilled chicken tacos, burrito bowls, and more. Its a pretty simple blend of canned chipotle peppers in adobo, orange and lime juice, garlic, cilantro, salt, and a few dried spices.
In case you dont have a go-to chicken marinade, heres a handful of ideas for different flavor profiles:
Key : The Perfect Pull Temp For Grilled Chicken
As we mentioned above, chicken must be thoroughly cooked to be safe to eat. Given the fact that time and temperature will affect the safety of the chicken, we recommend pulling the meat at 155°F and then tenting it with foil to maintain temperature for a few minutes. If that sounds scary to you, then think of this: chicken becomes safe to eat at 155°F after about 55 seconds, so tenting it to maintain temperature for a minute will get you to safety but there will also be carryover cooking in the breasts, with the thermal gradients equalizing over the thickness of the meat. So your 155°F chicken will end up a lot closer to the safe temp of 165°F . A 57°F rise in temperature can be expected if the meat is kept from cooling too quicklyhence the tenting with foil.
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Quick Tips For Grilling Chicken Breasts:
How long do I grill chicken breast?
Grill chicken breasts for around 9 to 10 minutes total, flipping halfway through.
How long do you grill chicken on each side?
Grill chicken breasts around 5 minutes on each side.
What’s the perfect grilled chicken temp?
Internal temperature of chicken breasts should be 165°F.
How hot should your grill be for chicken?
Heat your grill to between 425 and 450°F for chicken breasts.
How To Grill Chicken Breast
Home » Chicken Recipes » How to Grill Chicken Breast
Learn how to grill chicken breast on a gas grill. Guaranteed tender and moist grilled chicken breast with perfect sear marks, every timejust a few simple steps needed. Plus youll learn about a gas grill that makes grilled chicken breast even easier.
This post is sponsored by Everywhere Agency on behalf of Char-Broil. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
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How Long Should You Grill Chicken Breasts
Chicken should be cooked to a minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit in order to be consumed safely, warns FoodSafety.gov. The safest way to ensure your chicken is properly cooked is to use a meat thermometer and check the innermost part of the thigh, innermost part of the wing and thickest part of the breast.
Grill manufacturer Weber recommends grilling chicken breasts over medium heat between 425 and 450 degrees Fahrenheit and grilling for about 10 minutes, flipping halfway through.
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When Do You Add Sauce To Chicken
Tangy barbecue sauce is truly the taste of summer. Apply it too early, though, and youll end up with a sticky, burnt mess. Since most barbecue sauces, especially those from the grocery store, are high in sugar, they tend to burn quickly.
Save the sauce for close to the end about 10 minutes before the chicken is ready to come off the grill to get it nice and caramelized. And, of course, you can always get even saucier once the chicken is ready to eat.
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Recap: Temp Your Chicken
Most people overcook chicken because they use physical artifacts to cook it, instead of actually measuring its temperature. The only way to know how well your chicken is cooked is to use a thermometer, preferably one that is fast and accurate .
Though the USDA names 165°F as the doneness temperature for chicken, cooking it to a lower temperature and holding it at that temperature for an appropriate time will result in juicier, tastier chicken. Add to ensure safety when cooking to those lower temperatures, track your chickens carryover cooking.
By following these guidelines and using a Thermapen® and a leave-in probe thermometer to cook chicken, youll get meat that is safe, juicy, and tastes better than, well, chicken! Happy cooking!
And now that you know how chicken temperatures work, take a look at some of our other posts on chicken:
Average Grill Temperatures And What They Mean

When a recipe says grill over medium heat, what do they mean?
If you arent familiar with the various temperature levels used in grilling, heres a handy guideline showing the average temperatures. Make sure you have a good wireless digital thermometer to check and monitor the temperature at the grill grates.
- Low heat 250 to 275 °F
- Medium low heat 300 °F
- Medium heat 350 °F
- Medium high 400 to 450 °F
- High 500 to 650 °F
- Cremation 650+ °F
Cooking chicken too fast or too hot will end up burning the skin but leaving the meat undercooked, ugh!
So, the correct chicken cooking temperature will be in medium range, to cook it long enough without burning.
How To Flatten Thick Chicken Breasts
If your chicken breasts are different in thickness or over ¾ inches thick, they need to be flattened. Without flattening, the surface of the breast will be overcooked and dry before the center reaches a safe temperature.
To flatten, protect yourself and the surrounding area from splatter by placing the breast in plastic wrap or one-gallon freezer bags. Then use a meat mallet or the bottom of a heavy pan on a large cutting board.
Should You Marinate Brine Or Rub Before Cooking Does It Affect The Cooking Time
Wet marinades and wet brining add flavor but can increase the cooking time for the skin on chicken. It takes longer for the skin to dry before it can brown.
Boneless cuts of chicken take the same amount of time, marinated or not.
Dry rubs for chicken will help the skin to dry and will not affect cooking time.
Keep in mind that good old salt and pepper are the simplest yet best grilling seasonings. The smoke from the charcoal while grilling will overpower more delicate flavorings like herbs. And, if you plan on slathering with sauce at the end, youll just mask the other flavors from the marinade or rub.
While this guide works well, it still comes down to what thermometer says. You cant rush quality.
I hope the information here helps you the next time you grill your chicken, whole or parts. Let me know what you think in the comments below, and I hope you found this article helpful.
Happy grilling!
Should You Marinate Chicken Breasts Before Grilling Them
What I actually like to do the most is to add garlic powder to the brine mixture. You can also add black pepper and other seasonings too. In that way, youre adding flavor like a marinade would while brining.
The only thing to note is that you dont want to leave the chicken in the brine anywhere near as long as you would in a marinade. The most youd want to leave them in there for is 3 hours or 5 hours . Then take them out of the brine and refrigerate them dry until youre ready to cook them.
If you would prefer to not brine your chicken breasts, you can do a marinade instead.
How Long Does It Take Chicken Breasts To Cook In The Pan
Ovens arent the only vehicle for cooking the perfect chicken breast. You can pan-sear chicken breasts for a quicker cook. The timing depends on the thickness, but the 165-degree Fahrenheit internal temperature still stands.
Budget Bytes recommends cooking a thick boneless chicken breast for about eight minutes on each side on medium heat, and thin breasts at four to five minutes per side.
What Temp To Grill Chicken
Cooking chicken on the grill is a great way to bring out amazing flavors in the meat. Whether youre grilling a whole chicken or making chicken wings on the grill, this chart will show you what temp to grill chicken.
Chicken should always read between 165°F and 175°F on a meat thermometer. Always use a meat thermometer to ensure chicken is done cooking on the grill.
Temperatures are for a charcoal or gas grill using thawed chicken. I recommend marinating chicken for 30 minutes to 2-3 hours before grilling it for the juiciest results.
Chicken Part | ||
---|---|---|
Medium-high 375°F | Closed | 1 hr. 25 minutes face legs towards the back of the grill, then rotate at at 45 minutes to face wings towards the back of the grill |
Boneless Chicken Thighs | Medium to medium-high, 350°F-375°F | Closed |
Medium to medium-high, 350°F-375°F, lowered to 300°F | Closed | 4 minutes per side lower heat to medium-low, cook another 3-5 minutes |
Boneless Chicken Breasts | Medium-high to high, 375°F-400°F | Closed |
20-25 minutes check and flip as they darken | ||
Chicken Legs | 30-35 minutes flip every 5 minutes | |
Chicken Tenders |
How To Grill Chicken Breast On A Gas Grill
- Coat both sides of chicken with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper or desired seasonings. Let the chicken sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
- Preheat gas grill before cooking to medium-high heat, or 350-400° F.
- Lightly grease grill surface and add chicken. Close lid and cook 8 minutes, or until bottoms are browned with sear marks.
- Rotate chicken, close lid, reduce heat to medium, and cook 7-10 minutes more, or until internal temperature reaches 165° F.
- Remove chicken breast from the grill and let rest 5 minutes before serving.