Quarantine Cooking: Tequila Lime Chicken

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tequila Lime Chicken, 2 May 2020.

For this week's installment of #quarantinecooking, I made tequila lime chicken with grilled fresh cut pineapple. I followed the tequila lime chicken thighs recipe from Traeger Grills, with some minor substitutions, including two chicken breasts for the picky eaters in the house. These were awesome, and the leftovers will make great chicken tacos for Cinco de Mayo, if they last that long.

Here's the recipe and changes I used:
- 4 skinned chicken thighs (I could only find one package of four at the store, so I added two skinless chicken breasts in order to have leftovers)

Dry Rub
- 2 teaspoons of ancho chile powder
- 2 teaspoons of sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon chili powder (I used Penzey's taco seasoning instead)

Glaze
- 1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 4 tablespoons local honey
- 4 tablespoons of pineapple juice (I used a tablespoon of fresh pineapple juice from the pineapple I sliced, along with 3 tablespoons of Vita Coco coconut water with pineapple)
- 3 tablespoons of tequila (Casadores Reposado)
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (I left that out)
- 1 1/2 tablespoon hot sauce (I also left that out)
- 1 1/2 tablespoon butter
- 1 1/2 fresh lime juice

I set the Traeger to 375, mixed the dry rub & added the chicken, set it aside. While the chicken is cooking on the grill meat side down for the thighs, make the glaze. Bring the ingredients above to boil over medium heat, until it starts to cook down & thicken. That took about 3-4 minutes. I made a margarita to accompany the cooking.

I grilled the chicken for about 15-20 minutes, and when it was time to flip I added the glaze and the pineapple to the grill. I then cooked the chicken another 15 minutes. I may have checked it at the 10 minute mark to flip the pineapple and add glaze to everything.

Allison made Cuban black beans to go with the chicken, Sophia made white rice. I think this would be great with Mexican yellow rice or plantains. Enjoy!