Pulled Chicken - Easy

This recipe only has 4 ingredients if you count leftover cole slaw from another day as one ingredient, 6 if you have to take 2 minutes out of your life to make it now.

Chicken doesn't pull apart nicely, at least for me, so the name is a bit of a misnomer.  But the term "pulled" is fairly well-known, semi-descriptive, and it's easier to type than "cut into tiny pieces, mix with a long-time family secret recipe barbecue sauce and serve on a bun" chicken.

There are many recipes for pulled chicken where the chicken is lovingly slow-cooked then mixed into a hearty home-made sauce.

This isn't one of them.

If you have some time, grill a few pieces, preferably with bones and skin on to get that wonderful carcinogenic smoky-grilled taste. Or better yet, next time plan better and throw a few more chicken pieces on the barbie to freeze for another meal.

The day I made this, I was still jet-lagging from a great vacation in California, and was not in the mood to slow-cook (or home-cook for that matter) anything.   But for a change I planned better and used leftover chicken pieces from a pre-vacation grilling.  Two breasts and one thigh gave their lives for the recipe.  But eat the wing and drumstick yourself before continuing.  You are SO worth it.  If you are really running late, send someone to buy a roasted chicken from the supermarket.  My local Try-n-Save has a kosher rotisserie.  The birds are on the small side, so in that case use the whole chicken for 5-6 servings (minus the wings and drumsticks, see above).

I would say to simply buy a 1/2 pound of cole slaw to go with the meal, but it's so freakin' easy to whip up a small batch that even tho I was not in a real cooking mood it was not very painful to make a small subset of cole slaw before starting on the chicken.  Just pour about a cup of slaw (from a bag of slaw) into a 1 quart bowl.  Mix well about a tablespoon of Miracle Whip and almost a teaspoon of sugar in a small bowl and scrape it over the slaw.  Mix well and shove into the fridge before continuing with anything else.

I hedge on the amount of barbecue sauce to use, because the amount depends upon how sauce-y your family likes their chicken.  My family likes it on the dry side, just enough to color the chicken.  If you have a more normal family, use up to 1 cup of sauce and keep a roll of paper towels handy.

Pulled Chicken
serves 4-6, depending upon bun size

3 chicken breasts and/or thighs, barbecued (or 2 cups leftover chicken)
6 pack bag of hamburger buns
1 cup cole slaw
1/3 - 1 cup barbecue sauce (bottle ok)

Shred the chicken. 

Eat some of the crispy skin when no one is looking. 

 Tell everyone you gave it to the dog. 

The shreds don't have to be very small.  Drop them into a 2 qt. saucepan.

This is what the 3 chicken pieces look like after shredding.  Now dump the barbecue sauce over the chicken, then heat over a medium flame, stirring constantly for 2-4 minutes (2 minutes if the chicken was freshly shredded, 4 or more if cold leftover was used) so that the sugar in the sauce doesn't burn.














Split open the buns and scoop about 1/2 cup of  chicken mixture onto the bottom half.  Gently press down so that the shreds don't escape, for the time being at least.  Top with a little cole slaw.

Serve with barbecue beans, quinoa (both recipes will be posted eventually) or your favorite veggie.

YoungerSon, who announced just as I was in mid-shred, that he doesn't like barbecue sauce, said that the meal wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.  Stop!  I'll get such a swelled head from such compliments!