Sweet and Spicy Smoked Chicken

“This post is sponsored by Traegar Grills, all opinions are my own.”

Summer is for barbecuing. I have always loved the grill. There is just something that seems to draw you into that smell of food cooking or having been cooked outside on a fire. My family growing up, we grilled a lot! We have been known to grill in the rain and snow, we just really love it that much. As you can imagine I have used many grills over the years. I am here to tell you I have found the best grill I have ever used.

One set of grilling machines have always fascinated me are smokers. I have always admired them from afar, and thoroughly enjoyed the food I have had from them. There’s something about cutting into a piece of meat and seeing that smoke ring that just says, “mmmm, this is gonna be tasty.” But until recently, I have never had the opportunity to own one. It’s been a long time goal of mine to have a smoker, and the little giddy wheels in my mind were always turning with recipe ideas.

I began to see over that past couple of years that more smokers were popping up in the stores. The start of this season though there seem to be an explosion of smokers! Traegar was the brand that I kept coming back to. I liked the traditional look of it and I loved that there was a digital component as well. I like to be precise when cooking and the digital temperature control allows for that.

We had the opportunity to bring the Pro Series 34 Pellet Grill into our home. It was very easy to assemble. If you should have any issue don’t hesitate to call customer service they are very helpful and knowledgeable. The first time you use it, you have to cure it for 45 min to get any factory residue off the grill, but after that the grill is ready in about 10 min. This is a wood pellet grill, so it uses small pellets of wood and you place those in the hopper and that hopper moves them down into the firepot. The fire pot gets hot and the fire start rolling.

I cooked all day for our family summer cook-out, I put it to the test with ribs, dogs, and burgers. Best family cook-out food ever! I filled the hopper up completely and I was able to cook all day on the grill at varying temperatures. You can get the pellets from Traegar direct, I also found them at my local Costco. I also highly recommend the front folding shelf so that you have somewhere to put your food while adding it to the grill.  Also, if you are going to invest in a nice grill get the cover, It’s well worth, keeps the grill protected when not in use from the elements.

So the best thing I have made so far is BBQ Smoked Chicken. Chicken is one the most versatile meats that you can cook. It readily absorbs all the flavor you put into it. Cooking a whole chicken it self bastes and just turns out succulent and juicy. You can get super fussy if you want and truss up your chicken with butcher twine, but I don’t like super fussy, so I didn’t. I put together one of my fave BBQ rubs and rubbed the chickens down with it, under the skin of the breast, massaging into the wings, legs, thighs and back. Don’t forget the inside cavity put flavor in there as well. I turned the traegar grill to 350 and let it heat up. You will want to cook the chicken until the internal temp is 165. It takes roughly around an hour. One of my favorite features of this grill is that it has two temp probes. You plug them in and then press the button the display tells you the temperature! It’s really neat.

Check Traegar grills out, I don’t think you will be disappointed! I know we aren’t and we are so glad we now own one! Find our rub recipe below!