Grilled Chipotle Chicken

The entire family enjoyed this recipe, and I am attempting to freeze extra marinade for future batches to use up the entire can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. If I remember, I will return and report on how the sauce did when thawed. We marinated the chicken overnight, but I still found that I enjoyed it more with a little drizzle of reserved sauce. Just keep some in a container that you didn't use to marinade the chicken in. I found no need to thicken it, but that might vary from batch to batch.

To see the original recipe, go here: https://www.melskitchencafe.com/grilled-chipotle-chicken/

Grilled Chipotle Chicken

Ingredients:

• 12-ounce bottle chili sauce (see note)
• 1 to 2 tablespoons chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (see note)
• ¼ cup fresh lime juice
• ⅓ cup molasses
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• ½ cup red wine or rice vinegar
• 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts (see note)

Directions:

• In a blender, combine the chili sauce, chipotle peppers, lime juice, molasses, brown sugar, and vinegar. Process until smooth.
• Place the chicken in a gallon-size Ziploc bag and add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the marinade, tossing the chicken so it is evenly coated. Seal the bag and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 12 hours (highly recommend the longer marinating time for added flavor).
• Optional: Add the remaining marinade to a small saucepan, bring to a simmer, and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking. Reserve until ready to eat (if longer than an hour, refrigerate until needed).
• To grill: preheat a grill to medium-high (I do 400 degrees on my pellet grill). Remove the chicken from the bag, letting the excess marinade drip off into the bag, and grill for 4-5 minutes per side until cooked through and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part registers 165 degrees F. Let the chicken rest for 5-7 minutes before slicing and serving.
• To oven broil: preheat oven broiler to high. Position an oven rack so it is 3-4 inches away from the broiler element. Line a baking pan with foil and lightly grease with cooking spray. Remove the chicken from the bag, letting the excess marinade drip off into the bag, and place the chicken in a single layer on the baking sheet. Broil for 3-4 minutes (watch closely in case your broiler cooks hotter than mine!), flip the chicken, and broil for 3-4 minutes longer until the chicken is cooked through and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part registers 165 degrees F. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5-7 minutes before slicing and serving.
• Serve the chicken with reserved sauce (see note for our favorite way to serve this chicken!).

Marsha's Notes: 

We broiled our chicken and it turned out great. We just used a walled cookie sheet with a non-stick liner and a cooking rack placed inside to set the chicken on. We used high-broil with the chicken placed on the highest rack in the oven. I was super scared it was going to burn on the outside and be raw in the middle, but it turned out great. There are certainly a few charred places, just like when you cook on a grill, but nothing burned except for sauce drippings, which cleaned up pretty nicely with the non-stick mat. 

I also put a thermometer in one of the pieces so I could monitor the temp while cooking. For our oven, I would say it took about 5 minutes per side. Seems like the first side was done about the time the chicken was about 90-95 degrees, I flipped the chicken pieces, rotated the pan in the oven, and then the second side was done when the chicken reached 165 degrees in another 5 minutes or so.

When it was done, I put it in a 9x13 pan covered with foil into our second oven set to warm while I got the rest of the meal prepared. This allowed the juices in the chicken to redistribute before we cut into it and kept it nice and warm.

I didn't make a note of what size the can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce was, but we had enough to make three batches of marinade with one can. It seemed like there were two sizes, and if I had to guess, I might have gotten the bigger can to make sure I had plenty because I didn't remember how much the recipe called for. It seemed like one can was the size of a small olive can, and the other can was the size of a small tuna fish can. I think we had the tuna-size.

Also, I don't believe my can was "chopped" but rather bigger, possibly sliced or chunked peppers, which was fine because they went in the blender, so it didn't really matter.