Summer is a wonderful food season isn’t it? Cookouts, potlucks, fresh watermelon, all sorts of popsicles and frozen desserts…it’s all great! And of course, it wouldn’t be summer without firing up the grill at least once or twice. If you want to branch out from burgers and hot dogs, but still want to keep it simple, try my recipe for easy balsamic marinated grilled chicken!
Why I Love This Easy Balsamic Marinated Grilled Chicken Recipe:
This recipe is awesome because there are only a handful of ingredients and a few steps. And because it uses chicken thighs instead of breasts, which have more fat (and flavor, in my opinion!) the meat comes out juicy and tender every time. The added fat will also help keep the meat from getting too tough if you happen to overcook it on the grill. So this recipe is very forgiving also!
My absolute favorite part of this recipe is the short marinating time. Only 30 minutes and the chicken comes out perfectly seasoned, with a deliciously tangy, sweet flavor. Honestly, 30 minutes is all you need! This means that even if you didn’t plan ahead, you are still all set to make this crowd-pleasing main course!
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Easy Balsamic Marinated Grilled Chicken Ingredients
You only need five ingredients to make this recipe for easy balsamic marinated grilled chicken: chicken thighs, balsamic vinegar, olive oil (I used extra virgin olive oil), honey, and salt. That’s it! Oh, and also some neutral oil like vegetable oil to rub on the grill so the chicken doesn’t stick. Would you count that as a sixth ingredient?
By the way, if you are noticing the interesting looking salt in the picture above, it’s called Real Salt (affiliate link). It’s unrefined, unprocessed sea salt mined in America. My mother-in-law gave some to me and I really love it!
How to Make Easy Balsamic Marinated Grilled Chicken
As I mentioned, this recipe is very simple and there are only a few basic steps.
Step One: Trim Chicken Thighs
Chicken thighs usually come with a few bits of fat around the edges. If you take just a few minutes to trim these off, you will be rewarded with a better eating experience in my opinion, since you won’t have to navigate around any wiggly bits when you are ready to dive in to your freshly-grilled chicken. My favorite way to do this is with kitchen shears. It is just such an easier and more precise way to do it, and I highly recommend it!
Don’t worry about getting off every little bit of fat. Just snip off the larger pieces as you can see in this picture here:
As I mentioned in this post for Mango and White Chocolate Scones, my favorite kitchen shears are these ones from Wusthof (affiliate link). I’ve had them for years and they are still going strong! And they have saved me so much time doing kitchen tasks that tend to be a bit tedious like cutting herbs and dried fruit (and trimming chicken!).
Step Two: Marinate Chicken
This part is pretty easy! Just add your chicken to a gallon Ziploc bag and dump in the rest of your ingredients. Once everything is in, squeeze out most of the air from the bag and seal it. Then massage the bag to mix all the ingredients together. This also helps to make sure each crevice of the chicken is exposed to the marinade.
Once you’ve given everything a good mixing inside the bag, let the chicken marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes. You can go longer if you want to, but I wouldn’t go much past 8 hours. Otherwise the chicken may get a bit mushy from being exposed to the acid in the vinegar for too long. The longest I’ve let this chicken marinate was about six hours, and it was delicious but not significantly more flavorful than just going for 30 minutes.
Step Three: Prep For Grilling
That’s it, we are almost ready to dig into some delicious marinated chicken thighs! You have many options for doing the actual grilling. You can use a charcoal grill (see note at bottom of post) or gas outdoor grill of course. Or even a cast iron indoor grill pan if the weather is bad or you don’t have an outdoor grill. I actually used my favorite Lodge Reversible Grill/Griddle (affiliate link) this time around. It’s convenient and also I didn’t feel like cleaning the outdoor grill. (Ok, mainly because of that second reason, please don’t judge me!)
This Lodge grill/griddle is great because it’s versatile; you can grill chicken on one side and make pancakes on the other! And it’s a nice, generous size to cook lots of food at once. (I probably could have fit all eight chicken thighs on there at one time but got overzealous and started putting chicken on the grill before I blotted all the pieces off, so I thought it would be best to slow my roll and just cook four at a time!)
For an indoor cast iron grill pan or outdoor gas grill, preheat on medium high heat for about ten minutes. When the grill is heating up, remove the chicken from the fridge and blot both sides of each piece with a paper towel to remove most of the moisture. When you are ready to cook, oil the grill with an oiled paper towel held in a pair of tongs. Use a neutral oil like vegetable oil or canola oil, which have a high smoke point.
Step Four: Get Cooking!
Place the blotted chicken on the grill, and grill on the first side for 5 minutes. Flip the chicken and grill for another 5 – 6 minutes. At this point you should take the chicken’s temperature with an instant read thermometer. If it’s reached 165 in the thickest part, you’re good to go!
What if you’ve already cooked your chicken on the second side and it’s not close to 165 but is getting too dark? Just flip the chicken again and cook for another 2 minutes and then test again. Because the size and thickness of the chicken thighs will vary, you will likely need to remove some from the grill earlier than others. This is another reason why using the thermometer to test for doneness is so helpful!
Don’t Forget to Take a Rest!
Also, let your chicken rest for about 5 minutes before eating. This ensures your chicken will retain all its delicious juices when you cut into it.
Making Easy Balsamic Marinated Grilled Chicken Using a Charcoal Grill
While of course you are able to use a charcoal grill to make this recipe, I only own a gas grill currently. So, I don’t feel qualified to provide instructions on the best way to cook this recipe using a charcoal grill. Through some research on this topic I see that there are different methods for heating the coals and for regulating the temperature that may change the instructions slightly.
Although, if you own a charcoal grill I bet you are quite adept at using it and could grill a mean chicken thigh. If you end up using this recipe with a charcoal grill, please let me know how it turned out!
Print
Easy Balsamic Marinated Grilled Chicken
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Main Course
- Method: Grill
- Cuisine: American
Description
Chicken thighs are marinated in a simple balsamic vinegar, honey and olive oil marinade. A quick 30 minute marinade is all you need for deliciously tangy and slightly sweet chicken that’s tender and juicy.
Ingredients
- 8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 1/3 c. balsamic vinegar
- 1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp. salt
- 3 tbsp. honey
- neutral oil (vegetable, canola, etc.) to coat the grill
Instructions
1. Trim any excess fat off the chicken thighs.
2. Place chicken thighs, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, honey and salt inside a gallon zip top bag (see note 1). Remove air from the bag and seal. Massage the bag to incorporate the marinade ingredients and ensure all surfaces of the chicken are coated. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes or more (see note 2).
3. When you are about ready to cook, preheat the grill on medium high heat for ten minutes. While the grill is heating, remove the chicken thighs from the marinade and pat both sides with paper towels. Right before grilling, wipe the grill grates with a paper towel soaked in neutral oil (hold the paper towel using tongs).
4. Place the chicken on the grill and cook for 5 minutes. Flip the chicken and grill for another 5 – 6 minutes, or until the temperature of each thigh (taken at the thickest part) reaches 165 degrees.
5. If the chicken still needs more time but is getting too dark, flip the chicken again and cook for another 2 minutes, or until it reaches 165 degrees.
6. Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes and serve.
Notes
- If you don’t want to use a zip top bag, place the vinegar, olive oil, honey and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Add the chicken and stir to evenly coat the chicken in the marinade. Cover the bowl with tin foil or plastic wrap and place in the fridge to marinate.
- Marinating for 30 minutes is all you need for well flavored chicken, but if you want you can marinate longer, up to 8 hours.
Keywords: grilled chicken, grilled chicken thighs, marinated chicken thighs, balsamic marinated chicken thighs, balsamic chicken
Karly
Yum! Great flavor!
Kate
Thanks Karly! 🙂
Cathy
Your Balsamic Marinated Chicken Recipe is a great one to use not only at home, but while we are camping & hiking in the National Parks this summer…Love that it is so simple! Thanks Kate! Keep the recipes coming!
Kate
That’s a great idea to try it camping, if you do please let me know how it turns out! I’m so glad you like the recipe thanks for your support! 🙂
Dawn @ The Kitchen and a Latte
Chicken thighs are great on the grill because if you overcook them slightly, they will still be juicy. I haven’t tried them with balsamic vinegar yet, but I will definitely have to try it! Sounds delicious 🙂
Kate
Yes that is exactly why I love them so much, very forgiving! And I personally find it pretty easy to overcook things on the grill if I’m not paying attention. I’m glad you like the recipe Dawn!
Mary
Do you think there is a way you could make it into a glaze? I would love to have extra sauce to drizzle over the chicken.
Kate
Hi Mary! That is a great idea to make a glaze! I haven’t done it myself with this particular marinade, but, here are some thoughts I had on the subject:
There are two ways I think you could do this – the first way would be to use the marinade after you’ve used it to flavor the chicken before cooking. If you want to use the marinade in that way after it’s been used with the raw chicken, you will need to boil it first to avoid food poisoning.
I found a couple articles that talk about how to safely use a marinade as a sauce, this one says to boil it for at least 1 minute for safety: https://vitals.lifehacker.com/boil-your-marinade-before-serving-it-as-a-sauce-1836080779.
This one says to boil it for at least 5 minutes for safety: https://www.thespruceeats.com/marinade-tips-1809225
However, I think there could be a couple problems with this method: (1) it would probably be too salty once it’s cooked down, and (2) there is probably too much oil, and there isn’t any way to emulsify the oil into the other ingredients so it would combine into a smooth sauce.
So, I think the better way would be to mix up a separate batch of glaze ingredients. I’m thinking stick with the balsamic vinegar, honey, a little bit of salt, and maybe some orange juice as additional liquid. Then cook this down until it’s a nice, shiny glaze. This is similar to my recipe for teriyaki sauce for lettuce wraps (here is that recipe: https://nibbleanddine.com/teriyaki-chicken-lettuce-wraps-2/)
I hope this is helpful info, please let me know if you’ve tried making the glaze and how it turned out!
Maria O’Donnell
Is there an easy way to freeze this chicken recipe. We are going away and want to bring most of our food. Something I can reheat in oven or cook partially and finish on grill?
Kate
Hi Maria! I think you could definitely reheat the chicken once it’s fully cooked, I would wrap it in a double layer of foil and add in a couple tablespoons of water or broth to keep it moist, then place it on indirect heat on the grill to reheat to 165 degrees. (Leave a little space at the top for steam to escape.) You could even put it back on the hot grill for a couple seconds on each side once it’s heated up if you want to get a little extra char on the outside.
If you’re going to reheat the chicken, I would definitely recommend using thighs rather than substituting chicken breast, because they will stay more tender rather than drying out like chicken breast can. I’ve never partially cooked chicken before so I’m not sure if that would work or not. I hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy your trip!