Bonus Recipe: Grilled Soy Sauce BBQ Chicken & Broccoli

Charred chicken & broccoli with sweet and tangy BBQ flavor

Hi Friends!

I wanted to sneak a grilled chicken recipe in before Labor Day while also encouraging you to get some veggies on the grill. If you don’t already own a grill basket for vegetables, it’s not too late!

A grill basket lets you grill almost any type of vegetable without worrying about it falling through the grates. In this recipe, we’re going to grill broccoli, but you can also grill bite-sized zucchini, bell pepper, cabbage, onion, mushrooms or cauliflower. You can grill asparagus stalks or broccolini stalks or thin, long carrots. You can even grill potatoes, as long as you boil them until just tender first.

Just toss the veggies with olive oil & salt and fill up the grill basket. Most veggies will take 10 to 15 minutes over medium-high heat, tossed occasionally with tongs. You’ll have tender, charred veggies with a smoky grilled flavor that can’t be replicated in an oven. Just dump the grilled veggies on a platter and serve them plain or with a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of vinaigrette over the top. There are lots of grilling baskets out there, this is the grill basket that I use.

Now, about that grilled chicken! This marinade has a sweet and tangy BBQ flavor with a hint of soy sauce and sesame oil. It’s based on similar marinades that use hoisin sauce, but I use ketchup (yes, ketchup!) instead. Hear me out. Ketchup is sweet and tangy and unlike hoisin sauce, it’s always in my kitchen (I don’t like having to buy special ingredients that I use for one recipe, then they sit in my fridge for months).

When ketchup is mixed with soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, honey and garlic it turns into a flavorful BBQ marinade with a little bit of Asian flavor thrown in.

This recipe tastes best grilled, because the chicken and broccoli get all crispy and caramelized around the edges, but I’ve included instructions for oven roasting, too.