Category: Chicken

Chicken Dishes

Making a Monterey Seasoned & Grilled Whole Chicken

Barbecued Monterey Style Seasoned Chicken

McCormick’s Big and Bold Monterey Style Seasoning has become a favorite seasoning of ours. It’s a mix of coarsely ground garlic, red bell pepper, roasted garlic, red pepper, and contains tumeric and annatto for adding a yellow color to foods. We find that the yellow color adds a pleasing and appealing look to chicken. So today we’re going to share our recipe for making a barbecued whole chicken seasoned with McCormick’s Monterey Style Seasoning along with a little bit of chili powder.

Monterey Seasoned Chicken Recipe
a 4 pound whole chicken
2 tbsp McCormick Monterey Style Seasoning
1 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp vinegar
1/2 cup water

  1. Wash the chicken under cold water and set on a plate to allow excess water to drain off.
  2. Place the Monterey Style Seasoning and Chili Powder in a cup. Add sugar, water and vinegar. Stir to mix well.
  3. Put the whole chicken in a one gallon size freezer zip-loc storage bag.
  4. Dump the seasonings over top of the chicken, seal the bag, and flip over a few times to distribute the seasonings. Place the chicken in the refrigerator and marinate for about 2 hours turning over every 1/2 hour so the seasonings evenly infuse the chicken.
  5. Since this is a whole chicken, it needs to be cooked indirectly so it cooks slowly and completely. So place the charcoal on only one side of the grill. Light grill.
  6. Remove the chicken from the zip-loc bag, and place into a disposable heavy-duty aluminum pan that has the bottom lined with non-stick aluminum foil. We use the disposable pans because the smoke from cooking will permanently mark a real roasting pan.
  7. When the grill is ready, place the chicken on the side away from the heat, cover and cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until the internal temperature of the chicken is about 170° F. For proper food safety, it’s very important that a meat thermometer is used to make sure the chicken it cooked thoroughly to prevent illness from under cooked chicken.
  8. Let the cooked chicken sit for 10 minutes before carving or else you’ll find you have shredded chicken (instead of sliced chicken).

A Delicious Mexican Grilled Chicken Recipe

Mexican grilled chicken

Several years ago we had lunch from a Mexican chicken restaurant near us called El Pollo Primo. They cook the chicken on a couple large griddles, and then serve a few pieces of whole cooked chicken on a plate along with some corn tortillas, salsa, and Spanish rice. Then at the table, the chicken is shredded by customer, placed on the corn tortilla, mixed with some Spanish rice and some salsa. Then the tortilla is rolled up, and eaten. We found this to be a delicious and unique way of serving chicken.

So over the years we’ve tried to replicate their seasoning on the chicken and we think we finally hit it.

El Pollo Primo Grilled Chicken

1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tsp chopped garlic (about 2 cloves)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground corriender
1/2 tsp annatto seed (from a Latin American grocer)

The annatto in this recipe adds the lovely yellow coloring to the chicken that you see in the photograph above.

Place the canola oil, water, vinegar, garlic, cumin, corriender, and annatto seed in a blender. Blend on medium high speed for 1 – 2 minutes to allow the annatto seed to be chopped up by the tines on the blender. Alternately use ground annatto, and whip up well with a wisk.

Wash, and place 5 – 6 chicken breasts and thighs in a large, freezer duty ziplock bag. Pour the seasonings over top of the chicken and seal the bag. Turn the bag over a few times to coat the chicken well, then place in the refrigerator. Let marinate for 4 to 6 hours, turning over ever hour or so.

Cook the chicken on a griddle or large iron frying pan until done, about 15 – 20 minutes to a side.

Serve with warmed corn tortillas, Spanish Rice, and your favorite salsa. You may optionally add sour cream, and cheese.

Home Cooked Chicken Meatballs with Kluski Noodles

Chicken Meatballs with Kluski NoodlesIf you’ve never read the nutrition label on most pre-made store bought meatballs, you might be surprised at the fat content. Many times the daily value for fat is at 25% or higher, and that’s only for a few meatballs (the nutritional values are listed for an arbitrary serving which isn’t a portion). So because of that high fat content in the prepared meatballs, we always make our own using lean ground beef, ground turkey breast or ground chicken. It’s really not that hard to make meat balls, and all most all are made with 4 key ingredients: meat, bread crumbs, egg, and seasoning. The short story is you toss everything into a large bowl, mix well with your hands and then form the meat balls into Picture of Kluski style egg noodlesballs with the palms of your hands. Place the formed meatball on a piece of wax paper and if making lots of meatballs, separate the layers with additional wax paper sheets.

Last Sunday night we felt like making a meal with kluski style egg noodles. While kluski egg noodles are more often used with soups, they are hearty enough to use in a chicken pasta dish. To the right is a picture of kluski noodles along with a quarter so the size can be judged. Kluski noodles are about 1/4 – 3/8″ wide, 2 1/2 to 3″ long, and are a little bit thicker then regular egg noodles.

Recipe for Chicken Meatballs with White Cheese Sauce and Kluski Noodles

To Prepare Chicken Meatballs

  1. Prepare a place to put the formed meatballs by placing a piece of wax paper on a plate.
  2. In a small cereal bowl beat and mix well:
    1 1/2 tsp Poultry Seasoning
    1 egg
    2 tbsp milk
  3. In a large bowl add:
    1 pound ground chicken
    1/3 cup unseasoned breadcrumbs
    Seasoned egg mixture
  4. Mix well with hands for a minute or so, and then form into 1 to 1 1/4″ balls with the palms. Place on plate covered with wax paper. Repeat until all of the meatball mixture is used up.
  5. Place the meatballs in a lightly greased large non-stick skillet, cover, and cook on low heat, turning every 2 to 3 minutes to cook through, and brown on all sides.
  6. Total cooking time will be about 10 – 15 minutes.
  7. Meanwhile, make the White Cheese Sauce and Kluski Noodles.

Kluski Noodles

  1. Cook 1/4 pound of Kluski Noodles according to package directions. Ours cooked for about 10 minutes.

White Cheese Sauce

  1. Add 1 cup milk and 2 tbsp white flour, and 1/2 tsp Poultry Seasoning to a 1 quart non-stick pan.
  2. Place over low heat, and stir constantly until the milk thickens, about 8 – 10 minutes.
  3. When sauce is thick, add 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese.

To serve, place a layer of cooked kluski noodles in a small bowl, top with 6 chicken meatballs, cover with some Cheese White Sauce, and Sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese.

Chicken Meatball Sandwich Recipe
Chicken Meatball SandwichAs an alternative for serving this recipe over kluski noodles, you could instead make a Chicken Meatball Sandwich. Make the meatballs and Cheese White Sauce as described above. Spread the Cheese White Sauce on a kaiser roll, cut meat balls in half, and place on roll, and finely sprinkle with finely sliced lettuce.

Get Mediterranean Flair with McCormick Greek Seasoning

McCormick Greek SeasoningA new spice blend we have at Spice Place is McCormick Greek Seasoning. This is a spice blend with mint, garlic and other spices that is great for adding new flavors to your meals. We’ve made a few recipes using McCormick Greek Seasoning, and all have been a hit. So we can highly recommend this seasoning to anyone that likes flavorful foods. Greek Seasoning isn’t spicy hot — it’s simple a spice blend with great Mediterranean taste.

We’re really impressed with the seasoning, so you can expect to see more recipes here that incorporate Greek Seasoning. We’ll start with the first of three easy to make recipes today.

Greek Seasoned Chicken
Recipe for Greek Marinated Chicken

  1. Mix the vinegar, olive oil, and Greek seasoning together in a pyrex cup.
  2. Wash chicken well, and place in a 1 gallon Ziploc bag.
  3. Pour the Greek Seasoning mixture over the chicken, seal the boag, and roate to spread the seasoning over the chicken.
  4. Place bag in refrigerator, and marinate for 2 – 3 hours, flipping the ziploc bag over ever 30 minutes so that the marinate gets evenly distributed over the chicken.
  5. Remove chicken from the ziploc bag, place on a baking dish, cover and bake at 350° F for one hour. Remove cover during last 15 minutes.

Serve with Greek Garden Salad

A Genuine Buffalo Wing Recipe

Buffalo Chicken Wings Serving
Chances are that you’ve had Buffalo Wings at one time or another. But unless you’ve been to Buffalo, New York, you haven’t had the real thing. We have a genuine Buffalo Wing Recipe that we got from a small Buffalo Wing shop located in Buffalo, NY. And it’s a killer recipe. This isn’t a quick to make recipe, the Buffalo Wings need to marinate in the seasoning sauce for 4 hours before cooking. They’re also cooked at 500° F for an hour. Preparation time is about 20 minutes. 4 hours to marinate, and 1 hour to bake makes about 5 1/2 hours from start to finish. There is no rushing this recipe if you want your Buffalo Wings to taste good. If you follow our directions in the Recipe for Buffalo Wings, you will enjoy a delicious meal of Buffalo Wings.

Buffalo Chicken Wings in Half-Pan
Here are some tips to making Buffalo Wings that aren’t in the recipe:

  • Use a blender to mix the seasonings.
  • If you use the Tabasco Sauce, and the 1 1/2 tsp of Cayenne Pepper, you’ll have a mild flavored wing. Use more Cayenne for more heat in the Buffalo Wings.
  • Our recommendation is to start with the middle of the road and use 1 1/2 tsp of Cayeene until you know if that’s too hot for you and your family, and then adjust the seasoning to your tastes for later recipes.
  • We marinated the Chicken Wings in a large gallon sized ZipLoc® bag Turning it over ever 1/2 hour or 45 minutes.
  • It’s easiest to use large 1/2 pan disposable pans lined with non-stick aluminum foil. Without the non-stick foil, the Buffalo Wings will stick to the pan.
  • Only place the wings in the pan. Dispose of the sauce. The wings absorb the sauce, and you’ll see there is plenty of liquid at the end of cooking.
  • Bake the wings covered for the first 45 minutes then remove the aluminum foil cover for the last 15 minutes to let the wings brown.
  • Serve with Blue Cheese Salad Dressing for dipping the wings, along with carrot sticks, celery sticks, and cucumber slices.

Buffalo Chicken Sandwich Recipe

Serving of Buffalo Chicken Sub
If you’re like us, you often make too much of a good thing. That is, your eyes are bigger then your stomach, and you cook more food then you can eat. We don’t like wasting food, so when we made the Buffalo Chicken Thighs Recipe the other day, we had a few thighs left over. Since we used boneless skinless chicken thighs, they could easily be chopped up to make a chopped chicken sandwich.

This is a really easy recipe to make using leftovers. Since the chicken was already cooked, all we needed to do to prepare this recipe was to chop up the seasoned chicken thighs into small pieces. We find cutting up chicken is easier when it’s cold, and so we chopped up the chicken right out of the refrigerator, then put it in a bowl to be reheated in the microwave. Since the Buffalo Chicken Thighs are very flavorful, this recipe doesn’t require any sauce.Chopped Buffalo Chicken Thigh

Serve the chopped Buffalo Chicken Thighs on submarine rolls that have been toasted lightly in the broiler, and then spread with mayonnaise. Top with the chopped chicken, and lettuce and tomato.

This is a tasty sandwich, which could actually be prepared directly from the Buffalo Chicken Thighs as the main dish instead of as a way to use up the leftovers.

Buffalo Chicken Thighs Recipe

Buffalo Chicken Thighs Recipe
We have this wonderful recipe for Buffalo Chicken Wings that came from a Buffalo Wing Joint in Buffalo, NY, and last week we thought we would try out the recipe using chicken thighs instead.

We choose chicken thighs because we feel they have more flavor that chicken breasts and thought that would make a nice meal. We also used boneless-skinless chicken thighs to reduce the amount of fat in this meal. Reducing the fat was part of our thinking to using chicken thighs instead of chicken wings for this meal.

We didn’t change the recipe for the marinade for the original Buffalo Wing Recipe and placed the chicken thighs into a large ziploc bag, and poured in the marinade. The marinade will easily season 5 pounds of chicken thighs in this manner. Place the bag of chicken thighs in the refrigerator, and let the chicken marinade in the Buffalo Wing Marinade for at least three hours, turning every 30 minutes to let the marinade season the chicken thighs evenly.

To cook the chicken thighs, remove the thighs from the ziploc bag, and place in a large baking pan that has had the bottom covered with non-stick aluminum foil (this is important, use non-stick foil). Bake in a 500° F oven for 30 – 45 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken thighs. When the thighs are done, remove from oven, and serve with carrot sticks, celery sticks, and blue cheese salad dressing.

Dinner idea; Savory Oriental Seasoned Chicken Wings

Oriental Chicken WingsFish sauce (or Nuoc Mam Nhi) is one of those seasonings that we don’t find as a standard item in most kitchens in America. There’s probably a lot of people that would toss it out simply because of the smell. But if you’ve ever eaten at a Chinese restaurant, the odds are you’ve ate this seasoning. To most Americans the smell of fish sauce would be a turn off, but when added to foods the smell vanishes and a delicious flavor results.

So here’s is a delicious Oriental Seasoned Chicken Wings recipe that gets it’s taste from two Asian sauces, fish sauce and oyster sauce. If you have neither of these in your kitchen cabinet then go out shopping for them at an Asian market, start with the lower priced ones first. Believe it or not, the lower cost fish sauces smell less.

Fish Sauce
Ingredients in Oriental Seasoned Chicken Wings

To make Oriental Seasoned Chicken Wings

  1. In a Pyrex cup, mix the soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, ginger, garlic, onion flakes, and sesame oil together. Blend well. Set aside to allow flavors to blend together.
  2. Disjoint or cut the chicken wings into little drumsticks and wing sections.
  3. Wash the chicken pieces, then place in a large ziploc storage bag.
  4. Pour the soy sauce / fish sauce marinade into the ziploc bag, seal, then flip over a few times to distribute the marinade over the wings.
  5. Place the wings laying flat in refrigerator and let marinate for 2 hours. Turn over every 20 – 30 minutes.
  6. Preheat oven to 450° F.
  7. Place the marinated chicken wings on a baking pan that has been covered with non-stick aluminum foil. Try not to let the chicken wings touch together.
  8. Bake for 25 minutes on a side.

These Oriental Seasoned Chicken Wings could also be served as an appetizer.

Hungry? Here’s a Delicious Maryland Grilled Whole Chicken Recipe

Picture of Maryland Grilled Chicken on a weber grillOften when we season foods for the grill we consider using spice blends like McCormicks Grill Mates and Durkee Grill Creations. While those are excellent seasonings, we like variety in our cooking and often wander off the beaten path and venture into our own seasoning wilderness. So yesterday, we came up with this recipe for Maryland Grilled Whole Chicken.

If you’re familiar with Maryland, you’ll know that it’s one of the largest producers of chicken in the world, and is home of the famous Perdue brand of chicken. Just as the Carolinas are known for their barbecued pork, Maryland is known for grilled chicken. During the summer weekends, the local benevolent societies like the Elks, Moose, VFW, and churches set up outdoor barbecues on roadsides where they serve grilled chicken. I can smell the chicken cooking now.

This chicken is seasoned with a dry rub and then basted frequently with a seasoned mop sauce. It’s cooked indirectly, and turned around everytime it’s basted so it’s cooked evenly. While we made a whole chicken, this recipe can easily be adjusted for chicken pieces by simply adjusting the cooking time.

Mop Sauce Ingredients

Dry Rub Ingredients

To make Maryland Grilled Whole Chicken

  1. Place 25 to 30 Kingsford charcoal briquets on one side of a coverable grill. Apply lighter fluid, and light the charcoal.
  2. Mix up the mop sauce in a 2 pint Pyrex measuring cup, or other glass container.
  3. Place the dry rub ingredients in a 1 gallon zipper storage bag.
  4. Wash and pat dry the chicken, place the chicken into the storage bag, and shake to evenly coat the chicken with the dry rub.
  5. When the grill is lighted, place the chicken about 6 inches away (horizontally) from the hot coals [don’t place the chicken over the coals] so that the chicken cooks slowly. Baste with an initial coat of th mop sauce. Cover the grill and close the vents to about 1/2 way.
  6. Baste with the mop sauce every 15 minutes. Rotate the chicken at each basting of mop sauce to cook the chicken evenly.
  7. Cook for about 1 1/2 hours. Check for doneness with a meat thermometer. The temperature should read 175° F when done.
  8. Remove from grill, and let rest about 10 minutes before slicing.

Serve with your favorite barbecue sauce.

If cooking chicken pieces, cook them indirectly as well, and turn and baste at 15 minute intervals.

Recipe: Grilled Jamaican Jerk Chicken Thighs & Breasts

Prepared Jamaican Jerk Chicken RecipeWe’ve been trying to perfect Jamaican Jerk Chicken and have come to realize that the secret is in preparation and planning. We bought a bunch of chicken breasts and chicken thighs, and decided to try making the Jamaican Jerk Chicken two ways. The first way was straight following the recipe on the package of McCormick Carribean Jerk Seasoning which called for marinating the chicken for 2 hours. The second way was to mix up another batch of the jerk marinade, and allow the chicken time to soak up the flavors by marinating overnight.

What we discovered from these two trials is that the longer marinating resulted in a much more flavorful meal. We were a little afraid that the longer seasoning time would result in an overpowering taste of the Jamaican Jerk Seasoning, but that didn’t happen at all. The 2 hour seasoned chicken still had a nice jerk flavor and is acceptable in a pinch. If you have the time, we recommend marinating the chicken overnight, or for 24 hours.

Recipe for Jamaican Jerk Chicken

  1. In a 2 cup pyrex cup, combine the jerk seasoning mix, with 1 cup canola or olive oil, and 1/3 cup lemon juice. Mix well.
  2. Wash the chicken, and place in a large heavy duty reclosable plastic bag.
  3. Pour the jerk marinade into the bag, seal tightly, and turn to evenly distribute the seasoning.
  4. Place the chicken in the refrigerator, and turn every so often to allow the marinade to cover other pieces of chicken.
  5. Marinate 2 – 24 hours. The longer the more flavor with infuse to the chicken.
  6. To grill, cook the chicken close to but not over hot coals until cooked through.
  7. To bake, place the chicken in a single layer in a 2″ deep baking pan, and bake at 325° F for 1 hour 20 minutes.

Note, we find that chicken thighs are best with the recipe. Since not all folks like dark meat, we added some chicken breasts. But the thighs are exceptional juicy and flavorful.