Apr 24, 2025
A sweet and spicy barbecue sauce made with juicy California strawberries, smoky chipotle chiles, and a touch of honey is the perfect sauce for slathering on tender grilled chicken drumsticks. The best part? It only takes about 15 minutes of prep, and you’re ready to grill!
Servings: 4 Servings
Ingredients
- 1 pound ripe California strawberries, stemmed
- 3 chipotle chile peppers in adobo
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp kosher salt plus more for seasoning
- 10-12 chicken drumsticks or about 4 pounds
- Ground black pepper for seasoning
Instructions
- Heat a gas or charcoal grill over medium heat. Clean grill grates and brush with oil right before you put the chicken on.
- Make the sauce. Combine strawberries, chipotles, garlic, vinegar, honey, and salt in a blender. Blend until smooth. Taste and add more salt if needed. Pour 1 cup of sauce into a liquid measuring cup and reserve the rest for serving.
- Prep the chicken. Meanwhile, generously season the chicken with salt and pepper on all sides.
- Grill the chicken. Once the grill is ready, grill the chicken with the lid on for 15-20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes or so to make sure it is not burning. If a piece of chicken starts to burn, move to a cooler part of the grill.
- After 15 minutes (or when the chicken meat starts pulling away from the bone), generously brush one side of the chicken with the measured amount of barbecue sauce. Cover and cook for another 5 minutes. Turn and generously brush the other side of the chicken with barbecue sauce. Cook, covered, for another 5 minutes. You should use almost all of the 1 cup of sauce. Discard any leftover sauce that you’ve been using to brush the chicken with.
- Once chicken is cooked all the way through, remove from the grill and serve with reserved barbecue sauce.
— Recipe by Hola Jalapeño. https://www.californiastrawberries.com/bbq-chicken-drumsticks- with-strawberry-chipotle-sauce/
