Grilled chicken: cook ahead, reheat & sauce?

[jjdbike]

Hello everyone,

This Saturday I am hosting a birthday neighborhood gathering celebration for my wife. I'm grilling chicken parts, and saucing them. All skin on bone it parts. I'm doing Sweet BBQ breast halves, Nashville hot drums, Alabama white thighs.

It's gonna be hot and humid. I'd like to do the majority of the cooking ahead of time so we can not be overheated and doing last minuet cooking as guests are arriving. I'd love to create some grill marks, get them upto safe temps and warm rest at 165 on a pellet grill. As we get close I'll crank up the temps to firm up the skin, then sauce, tack up, and serve.

Any tips, suggestions, or advice?

Respectfully,
JD

[Ace]

I think that you have a good idea on adding the sauces at the end. Since the white sauce is mayo based (I assume) it will tend to separate if heated. Always look forward to your pics...

[FireMan]

Personally, and I may catch some heat for this, yes pun intended, I would not reheat chicken.

[SheilaAnn]

If you really want to cook ahead, I would consider cook and hold and then finish with sauces. Cooling the chicken down and then reheating will just overcook the chicken and all the sauce in the world won’t make it better. You got skillz, sir. You got this!

[jfmorris]

The lovely @ShielaAnn and not as lovely FireMan (sorry! ) have it right. You are gonna dry the chicken out if you cool and then reheat.

Now, cooking and using the pellet smoker as a holding oven might work, if it can run at low enough of a temp (160?), but you are still gonna end up killing any crispy skin from the kettle.