Santa Maria BBQ Style Chicken Recipe
Brent grew up in Santa Maria, California. Santa Maria is known for its unique and delicious style of BBQ and Brent’s barbecuing skills are no less impressive than the BBQ from town where he grew up.
He was destined to be a GRILL Hero from birth.
Just look at that confidence at the grill!
Traditional Santa Maria BBQ is tri-tip, a specific cut of beef, but there is an equally amazing and easy way to barbecue chicken. The key to amazing Santa Maria BBQ chicken is not in the ingredients, they are ridiculously simple, but in technique. Get the technique down and you will be on your way to becoming a Grill Hero too. 😉
Santa Maria BBQ Style Chicken
- Chicken Breasts (Bone In)
- Bottle of Beer
- Italian Dressing Seasoning Packet
- Garlic Salt
- Pepper
We buy a whole chicken and quarter it ourselves. If you are quartering your own chicken leave the skin on.
1. Rinse and dry chicken.
2. Mix one packet of Italian dressing seasonings with half bottle of beer (about 6 oz). Brent prefers beers with stronger flavor. (Firestone and Bluemoon are two of his favorites.)
3. Generously sprinkle both sides of the chicken with garlic salt and pepper.
4. Place chicken on the grill bone side down. Let it cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes or until the skin starts to get golden brown.
5. Flip over the chicken and start basting heavily. The idea is to dry out the meat when you are cooking it boneside down and rehydrate with the beer baste. Cook for another 10-20 minutes depending on the size of your chicken, basting the entire time.
6. You can tell when it’s done because the meat starts to get firm and it’s no longer pink on the inside.
My favorite thing to eat Santa Maria BBQ chicken with is grilled artichokes. Heavenly! I will have to post how Brent makes these soon.
The best part of Santa Maria BBQ chicken is that I don’t have to listen to my kids complain. They love it! Almost as much as I do.
Hugs and High Fives,
Jenn
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Journey with our family on the road at New School Nomads as we take a year long RV road trip through the United States!
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All hail the GRILL HERO!
Whoa- dehydrate then rehydrate — NEVER heard of that but sooo cool.And I didnt’ know Brent grew up in Santa Maria.
PS you continue to amaze me- you’re on the road writing a dozen blogs (I think?) and you still come up with a gorgeous post and a fabulous recipe. I salute you (and the grill hero too)
Awe. Nice idea and it looks really delicious. Thanks for sharing a little bit of your recipe.
We don’t have a BBQ at the moment, but I am bookmarking this. It sounds delicious, and I know the boys would love it!
That looks really good, with some home made garlic sauce (garlic/sour cream and some smashed tomatoes, after they’ve been on the BBQ and they’re really soft inside) on the side I bet they’d make my day.
I’ll probably feel guilty and extend the workout program with 1 hour, but who really cares, willing to trade 1 hour for that!
Oh no!!! Most of the beer cooks off.
Nothing to feel guilty about!!!
The idea is to dry out the meat when you are cooking it boneside down and rehydrate with the beer baste.
Best chicken barbecue we’ve ever cooked. BBQ’ing it again tonight! Even tried it with no-skin chicken breasts when we didn’t have a whole quartered chicken, and it was delicious. But skin-on quartered chicken is the best! Thanks for this great, EASY recipe! A former Santa Maria resident transplanted to Atascadero CA.
Sounds delicious. I hail from Lompoc and familiar with this yummy style of barbecue. Have you tried steaming the chicken with beer in a tamale steamer after grilling? Your grill hero hubby probably knows this old school Santa Maria trick!
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Hi, love this recipe! Any chance you could post the recipe for Brent’s grilled artichokes?
Thank you!