One of the main benefits of butterflied chicken drumsticks is even cooking temperatures. Have you ever grilled a chicken drumstick and accidentally charred the skin, long before the meat is done? Suddenly you need to move the chicken to a cooler side of the grill, doubling down on the cooking time to slowly cook the inside of the chicken. Smoking can add a little time, but your family will definitely be eating within an hour. Right over the coals, these butterflied chicken drumsticks can be cooked in about 15 minutes, flipping every few to ensure even cooking. Slicing open the meat to a wider surface area instantly cuts down cooking time, most of the time by half.

Slowly smoking them will increase that time by at least another 30 minutes, which ends up being quite a long cook for chicken. Whole drumsticks on the grill can take anywhere between 30-45 minutes, depending on the process you use. We can’t stop making them! Try some of these recipes using the process such as Maple Bourbon Glaze with Chicken Drumsticks, or the Spiked Arnold Palmer Chicken.Ĭut your cooking time in half, at least. Could I actually be the first person to publish this grilling technique for butterflied chicken drumsticks? More meat, a little more effort, but a lot less money. Further research showed that this really hasn’t been published before, this new alternative to the expensive chicken wings. I’ve seen chicken drumsticks split open before but never used in this application. The recipe caught on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, and suddenly I realized I better write this down. Weeks went by, and everyone was making these. Suddenly I was being tagged, over and over again by others trying out the process. Nothing happened at first, my followers are generally very supportive and thought it was neat.

I had just made a recipe for a spatchcock chicken, so it just hit me: Will this work for drumsticks? I didn’t know honestly, but I recorded the process and posted it on Instagram. Chicken drumsticks are always the cheapest, given that they take way less time to process than the rest of the chicken. Part of my content strategy for this year was to start creating new recipes using cheaper cuts.

Ninja chicken legs