How to Make Perfect Grilled Chicken with Chili Salt: Crispy Skin, Juicy Meat

Grilled chicken with chili salt is always a favorite dish among Vietnamese people, with each piece of meat soaked in flavorful spices, evenly roasted to a golden perfection, featuring crispy skin and tender, juicy meat. To make the perfect grilled chicken with chili salt, you need a precise marinade recipe and the right grilling techniques. X-BBQ will share the secrets to creating an irresistible dish, from the marinade recipe to tips for grilling to ensure the dish is both visually appealing and full of flavor. Let’s discover these amazing grilled chicken secrets together

Grilled chicken with chili salt recipe

Ingredients

• Whole chicken
• Sugar: 1 tablespoon
• MSG (monosodium glutamate): ⅓ tablespoon
• Salt: ⅓ tablespoon
• Pepper: ⅓ tablespoon
• Garlic: 5 cloves
• Shallots: 7 bulbs
• Scallion heads: 4 pieces
• Honey: 3 tablespoons
• Cooking oil: 5 tablespoons
• Fish sauce: 1 tablespoon
• Annatto powder: 3 tablespoons
• Turmeric powder: ⅓ tablespoon
• Fresh chili: 1 piece
• Chili sauce: 2 tablespoons

Instructions

• Prepare the Chicken: Clean the chicken thoroughly, remove any fine feathers, and pat it dry.
• Prepare the Seasoning: Blend or pound all the seasoning ingredients together, including garlic, shallots, chili, MSG, salt, pepper, sugar, annatto powder, and turmeric powder. Ensure the ingredients are well mixed and form a smooth paste.
• Marinate the Chicken: Evenly coat the entire chicken with the seasoning mixture, making sure it reaches every part, including small crevices. Let the chicken marinate for 1-2 hours to fully absorb the flavors.
• Grill the Chicken:
  • Using a charcoal grill: Follow X-BBQ’s method. Roast the chicken on a rotisserie at around 100°C (212°F) for approximately 45 minutes. Use compressed coconut shell charcoal to avoid excessive flames that could burn the chicken. Additionally, place an aluminum tray underneath to prevent toxic smoke from rising during the roasting process.

    

  • Using an Air Fryer: Roast the chicken at 180°C (356°F) for 15 minutes, flipping the chicken after each round to ensure even cooking. Roast a total of 3 times to achieve perfect crispiness. During the roasting process, you can brush the marinade onto the chicken to keep it moist and prevent it from drying out.
• Finishing Touch: Once the chicken is done roasting, prepare a mix of Tây Ninh salt and Korean chili powder. Grind them finely and sprinkle over the chicken. This not only enhances the dish with a vibrant color but also adds a signature spicy flavor of chili salt.

Tip from X-BBQ: If you love grilled dishes, the Green Hills charcoal grill, paired with a rotisserie accessory, is an excellent choice at an affordable price. Designed with a tight-fitting lid, it ensures consistent heat, keeping your grilled dishes crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. This combo will elevate your grilling experience, making it perfect for the entire family.

How to grill juicy chicken

Even with a perfect recipe, if you don’t know how to control temperature and timing, charcoal smoke and high heat can leave your chicken dry, tough, or burnt. Don’t worry! X-BBQ will share grilling methods to help you create delicious chicken that is evenly cooked, juicy, and perfectly textured:

• For whole chickens or large cuts of meat, the roasting method is an ideal choice. This technique uses surrounding heat to cook the meat evenly from the outside in.
• Rotisserie roasting is a popular technique, where the chicken rotates on a spit. This ensures even heat distribution, preventing the chicken’s surface from burning due to direct fire exposure. At the same time, the heat from the rotisserie’s axis helps cook the inside of the meat, resulting in chicken that’s crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

 

 

 

|See more: What is roasting? Exlore the art of grilling 

Tips for making crispy and fragrant chili salt grilled chicken skin

To make your chili salt grilled chicken even more enticing, achieving a crispy skin is essential. X-BBQ shares a simple trick to help you get that perfect, golden skin:

• Near the end of the grilling process, increase the temperature to around 220–250°C (428–482°F) and continue grilling for an additional 5–7 minutes. This temperature boost will quickly crisp up the chicken skin while keeping the meat inside juicy and tender. This is the key to creating a dish that is not only visually stunning but also irresistibly delicious and fragrant.

Conclusion

With the recipe and grilling tips above, you’ll easily create chili salt grilled chicken with crispy skin and juicy, flavorful meat. Try it today to enrich your family and friends’ menu! This dish is sure to be the highlight of any meal. Best of luck, and enjoy this amazing dish!