The Easy Technique That Makes BBQ Chicken Glaze Perfectly Sticky

If you want to take homemade chicken to the next level, add a BBQ glaze. But before you do, you need to know how to get it just right so it's perfectly sticky. To get the details of how to do this, Daily Meal spoke with an expert: Hammed is a chef, recipe developer, and the author of the blog, The Prince Eats.

According to Hammed, it comes down to the ingredients you're using. He says, "Virtually all good BBQ glaze recipes incorporate high sugar ratios derived from multiple combined ingredients, but the award-winning glaze will be the result of a proper reduction over heat and waiting until the end of the cook to apply the glaze in layers." The sugar will likely come from ingredients such as ketchup, honey, and/or brown sugar — which are combined with other ingredients such as Worcestershire sauce, cider vinegar, and/or soy sauce to make the BBQ glaze. For anyone unfamiliar with what reduction is and what it's used for, it means to let a liquid simmer over heat until water begins to evaporate, which makes the sauce thicker. Hammed advises that the sauce should be "as thick as possible prior to slathering it over protein."

One of the most important details to get right is the timing — specifically, you don't want to add the glaze to the chicken too soon. Hammed says, "To get the perfect glaze on chicken, wait until close to the end of the cook to apply the glaze. Most glazes have a high sugar content which has the tendency to burn after a period of time under high heat." He advises waiting until the last 5 to 15 minutes of the cooking time to apply the glaze. This will result in "the best adherence and depth of color."

Additionally, the cooking process will look a little different if you're baking the chicken in the oven versus grilling it. As Hammed explains, the oven is much more consistent when it comes to temperature, so it's much more of a hands-off cooking process. However, if you're choosing to grill the BBQ glazed chicken, then it's going to require some maintenance on your part. There are also common mistakes to avoid when grilling chicken that you should know about, in general.

Hammed says, "The temperature variation [of the grill] poses more of a challenge to manage and maintain due to fluctuation in ambient and external temperature. In this case, if glazing chicken on a grill it is best to reduce the heat to a low setting and apply the sauce after having achieved grill marks (if desired)."