Best Barbecued Pulled Chicken - Cooks Illustrated

Published July 1, 2005.

Most recipes stick with boneless breasts and bottled sauce. How about a barbecue sandwich that rivals pulled pork in a fraction of the time?

The Problem

Made-from-scratch barbecued pulled chicken sandwiches often come down to boneless chicken breasts and bottled barbecue sauce. The result is a sandwich with no smoke, tough meat, and artificial flavor.

The Goal

We wanted to take pulled chicken sandwiches seriously -- using tender, smoky meat pulled off the bone in moist, soft shreds and then tossed with a tangy, sweet sauce--but we didn't want to take all day to make them.

The Solution

We chose whole chicken legs for great flavor, low cost, and resistance to overcooking. The unconventional use of a roasting rack allowed us to barbecue 12 legs at once. The legs cooked gently but thoroughly over indirect heat, absorbing plenty of smoke flavor along the way. Once the chicken finished cooking, we hand-shredded half and machine-processed chicken the other half to produce the perfect texture. The chicken then just had to be combined with a thinner version of Cook's existing quick barbecue sauce recipe to become truly bun-worthy.

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