These bacon ranch chicken skewers were
intended to star at your next football tailgate cookout, but since these
are made with sharp, wooden sticks, they could be used to inflict the
true death to smaller, slow-moving vampires at your Halloween party as
well.
Regardless of your party’s theme, these
tasty chicken skewers are easy, interesting, and incredibly adaptable.
As I sometimes do when showing a new technique, I’ve kept this recipe
ultra-simple, and only used ranch dressing and hot pepper as my
marinade.
I was hoping that as you watched, your
mind would be racing with ideas on how to make this already delicious
meat-on-a-stick even more amazing. This is the kind of thing you could
do a different version for every game of the season, and still not run
out of ideas!
The part I hope you follow exactly is
how to weave the bacon over the chicken. Using this method, you really
get two kind of bacon. The exposed bacon gets beautifully caramelized
and crisp, while the meat next to the chicken stays soft and fatty, more
like a thin slice of pork belly.
Speaking of thin slices, don’t use
extra-thick slab bacon for this. It will not cook before the chicken is
overdone. I actually like to use the thinner, extra-lean bacon, as it
has just the right about of fat to flavor and moisturize, without
starting a raging fire on the grill. Anyway, next time you’re planning a
game day tailgate buffet, I hope you give these a try. Enjoy!