Dutch Oven Smokehouse Chicken

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Dutch Oven Smokehouse Chicken is tenderized and slow-cooked in a Dutch Oven. The meat becomes extra-tender and stays that way beneath a skin that is crisped and browned in the final step of the cooking process. Read on for the mouthwatering recipe.

Dutch Oven Smoke House Chicken

Serve this with a heaping helping of Alabama White Barbecue Sauce and you might feel as if you’ve gone to Glory.

In order to make the smokehouse chicken I grew up with, you’d need a pit building that has been smoking chicken since the 1950’s and pit masters who work on it all day to get it just right. But on the off chance that you, like me, don’t have your own barbecue smokehouse, this is how I do it and it comes in as a very close kissin’ cousin — awfully good in it’s own right.

Ingredients smoke house chicken

Recipe Ingredients:

  • Cider Vinegar (more about that under the next photo)
  • Kosher salt (or regular)
  • Smoked Paprika (or regular)
  • Hot sauce (the red kind)
  • Crushed Red Pepper
  • Brown Sugar (light or dark)
  • Smoked or Regular Black Pepper

Helpful Kitchen Tools

  • Dutch Oven

Oh yeah, you’re gonna need some chicken. Bone in, skin on. No exceptions if you want this to be just right.

Seriously, if you don’t have the exact ingredients I am using (other than the type of chicken), it will be ok — what you have on hand will do just fine. But the chicken must be bone in, skin on.

*If you really want to give it a smokehouse taste, add in a little bit of liquid smoke. I don’t use that on here because I get too many emails when I use it that are actually worse than the emails I get when I use food coloring — and that is sayin’ something — believe me!

How To Make Dutch Oven Smokehouse Chicken

Pour vinegar into a dutch oven or deep pain

 Pour your vinegar into a dutch oven or deep baking dish.

A 9×13 would work for this as long as you are careful not to spill the liquid when putting it in and out of the oven.

Why Add Vinegar?

The chicken doesn’t taste like vinegar — don’t worry. The vinegar is a base that tenderizes it and infuses it with all of the other flavors. Once you add everything else to the vinegar in the next step, it becomes just a base. However, your kitchen will smell like cider vinegar and it WILL clean your sinuses out when you open the lid. If you can’t deal with that then you should have someone make this chicken for you :). However, if you like my slow cooked pulled pork, you’ll love this dutch oven smokehouse chicken. I used that recipe as a starting point to come up with this one.

add in all other ingredients except chicken

 Now add in all of your other stuff, everything except the chicken.

all ingredients except the chicken

Stir that up good and well until the sugar is dissolved. The vinegar helps this happen pretty fast.

after stiring that up add the chicken

Now put your chicken in, skin side down.

Dutch Oven Smokehouse Chicken - Slow cooked in a tenderizing sauce with a skin that crisps in the final steps, this chicken is amazing and made in your oven at home!

Put a lid on your dutch oven or cover your baking dish with foil.

Bake this at 300 for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and carefully remove lid (watch for the steam). Flip chicken over and put lid back on. Return to oven for another 45 minutes.

After that time, remove lid and keep pot in oven. Place oven on broil for 15-20 minutes to brown and crisp skin, watching carefully so chicken doesn’t burn.

after cooking leave in oven and broil for 20 mins

This is what mine looked like after 20 minutes under the broiler. I removed some of the liquid to get more parts of the chicken browning (the parts under the liquid won’t brown).

smoked house chicken on the plate

 And this is what you have on your plate.

bit of smoke house chicken

Now go ahead…Dig in to this crispy moist meal of goodness. Dutch Oven Smokehouse Chicken might just be your new favorite way to eat chicken.

smoked house chicken on the plate

Dutch Oven Smokehouse Chicken

Dutch Oven Smokehouse Chicken is slow-cooked in a tenderizing sauce that causes the meat to become fork tender beneath a skin that is crisped and browned.
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: chicken
Servings: 4
Calories: 409kcal

Ingredients

  • Bone-in skin-on chicken however much will fit in a single layer of a baking dish or Dutch oven
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon smoked black pepper can use regular
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar dark or light
  • 1 tablespoon hot sauce the red kind in the glass bottle
  • 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1 +1/2 cups cider vinegar

Instructions

  • Combine all ingredients except for chicken in enamel Dutch Oven, or other baking dish. Stir well until sugar is dissolved.
  • Place chicken in pot, skin side down. Cover and place in 300 degree oven for 45 minutes. Remove pot from oven and flip chicken. Cover again and return to oven for another 45 minutes.
  • Remove lid and place oven on broil. Broil for 20 minutes, or until skin is nicely browned and somewhat crispy on top, watching carefully so that it does not burn (this may take significantly less time in your oven as they vary).
  • Spoon additional pan juices over to serve.

Nutrition

Calories: 409kcal
Tried this recipe?Mention @southernplate or tag #southernplate!

 

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182 Comments

  1. This looks great! I love getting your newsletters! You always have so many interesting things to say. I LOVE your sticky chicken. We have made that twice already. Thank you for ALL of your GREAT recipes!

  2. I eat a lot of chicken and always looking for a new way to fix it. Thanks I am going to try this. I seen in the picture you had a can of smoky instead of the liquid. I never notice it in a can.
    Have a great day, and yes the fall colors are coming out
    here in MO.
    Judy

  3. I made this for last Sunday’s dinner and it was a hit. I do think I will add a little Liquid Smoke next time. It is only my husband and I so I can see using this for just a few Chicken Breasts over rice. I enjoy your blog, thank you.

  4. Great recipe, and I can’t wait to try it, but need to get some chicken w/skin….all I have are boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Question: Since I hate anything hot or spicy, can I omit the hot sauce and some of the pepper and still have it turn out tasty????

  5. Wow! What a good recipe! This ranks right up there with Sticky Chicken in my house, Christy, and I think I have posted often enough about Sticky Chicken in the past for you to know that’s saying something. Bear with me for a minute Christy, ’cause I gotta tell you just HOW good that Smokehouse chicken is…I’m gonna set the stage by telling you that my dear hubby loves mashed potatoes…he loves mashed potatoes so much that every night at dinner, the bowl of mashed potatoes goes right in front of his place setting. That bowl of mashed potatoes is the first thing he reaches for, the first thing on his fork.. and I usually find him scraping whatever’s left in the bowl, onto his plate at the end of dinner….. anyway, it has been this way for our 20 1/2 years of marriage…so, imagine my surprise when I looked over at his plate tonight, only to see nothing but chicken on his plate and a bowl of untouched mashed potatoes in front of him….yup, the chicken was THAT good! Never thought I’d see the day! Anyway, Smokehouse chicken will become part of the regular rotation for sure. Can you tell me what brand of smoked black pepper you use? I looked on the internet and it looks like McCormick’s makes a ‘Smokehouse Black Pepper’ but I can’t find it in my local market in South Jersey. I just used regular black pepper, but I think if I could find the smoked kind, it would be even more amazing. In any case, thanks for yet another keeper of a recipe. Have a blessed weekend!

  6. It’s a hit at my house! I made it last night and used a bit of liquid smoke since it was the only smoked ingredient I had besides the Salish smoked salt. Everyone loved it!
    I recently picked up an enameled Dutch oven at Kroger on clearance for $8.99!!!! There were four, and I almost got all of them, but just got two. One went to a bridal shower. I went back later that day and the other two were gone. So watch for them to rearrange the housewares department and rack up on the clearance items. 🙂

    1. By the way, Salish is a sea salt smoked over alderwood. If a friend hadn’t ranted and raved over how great it is as a meat rub for grilled steaks, I probably wouldn’t have bought a $12 jar of salt! It has a GREAT flavor, and a little dab’ll do ya; so it lasts for quite some time.

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