People always ask what I prefer: sweet or savory. The truth is I have a strong pull to mix them together, blur the lines. I add savory ingredients to my baked good and sweet ingredients to my savory dinners.
The best fried or baked chicken recipes there are have a touch of sugar. It’s this magic secret ingredient that just seems way to simple to make such a huge impact. If you already have a baked or fried or even grilled chicken recipe that you are perfecting, add a tsp of brown sugar and see how it gives an entirely new dimension to the flavor.
And the sauce combines two of my favorite kitchen staples: roasted red peppers and goat cheese. Both are savory ingredients with a touch of sweetness.
I baked these, more or less because it was easier. But they would also lend themselves well to frying, if you are brave enough.
Brown Sugar Chili Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp dried minced garlic
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 2 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 8 chicken legs or wings
- 1/3 cup roasted red pepper, chopped
- 2 oz goat cheese
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tbs sour cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425.
- In a plastic bag, or a bowl, combine the first 7 ingredients. Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and rub to coat. Add the chicken to the bag (or bowl) and toss or shake bag until well coated.
- Place on a baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes, turn the chicken over, and continue to bake until cooked through, about 10-15 additional minutes (depending on the thickness of your chicken).
- In a food processor, add the roasted red pepper, goat cheese salt and sour cream, process until well combined.
Like Domestic Fits on Facebook
Oh heart…be still! Goat cheese and roasted red pepper sauce is such a good alternative to the usual blue cheese.
That’s some good grillin, missy! mmmmhmmm! Looks like it has the perfect sweet crunch!
holy cow, talk about flavor explosion! i love the brown sugar crust and the red pepper cream to mellow it out but also give it another kick of flavor. looks great!
I love sweet and spicy when it looks like this. Love these!
These look so flavorful!! And oh goat cheese! It makes everything better!
Everything about this sounds like an awesome chicken dinner. I am not a huge fan of chicken, so I always play it up with tons of flavor. Brown sugar AND a red peppers sauce. Hecks yeah!
I just bought smoked paprika the other day and I love it. This looks like a great way to use it! (and chicken legs are fun to eat 🙂 )
http://thecollegeculinarian.blogspot.com
I am in LOVE with this recipe already! I just made baked chicken this week too. Yum!
Here’s the recipe:
http://www.skinnymommy.com/2012/05/southern-style-oven-fried-chicken.html
Jason is obsessed with chicken wings so he is going to be over the moon when I make this for him!
I have some thighs and wings to defrost… This sounds amaze…and I love the idea of red pepper cream sauce. I’ma condiment FAAA-REAK!
Sweet and savory are best combined, I agree. Goat cheese and red pepper – two of my favorites as well! Lovin’ all these flavors!
I like the sweet and savory kick this chicken has to offer. Goat cheese is a great addition. It just makes everything right.
I’m so with you on combining sweet and savory flavors. Sometimes I fear my recipes skew towards the weird because of it, but I don’t care. 🙂
Your pictures are making me so hungry! I’m making this for dinner tonight 🙂 Thanks for sharing the recipe!
http://www.theendlessmeal.com
these sound absolutely wonderful + i love the mix of sweet + savory. will definitely have to try these soon!
Everything about this sounds so good. I loooove roasted red peppers and goat cheese, and I love sauces. For my purposes, I might as well toss the chicken with the sauce because I’d probably be drowning it anyway with each bite. Yum!
mmmm…wait! Roasted red paprika, goat cheese, sour cream and brown sugar: sweet, hot and sour. Wow, you just made my favourite chicken dish! Can’t wait to try this!!
http://cosmopolitancurrymania.blogspot.com
Can you stop being such an evil temptress of food sin? My pants are not happy with me right now… So hungry!
I fell in love with your recipe, Jackie! I whipped it up this weekend with ingredients on hand. I decided to throw on the grill verse bake. Turned out wonderful! Thanks for sharing this delicious recipe 🙂 I featured on my blog. Thanks again.
Lindsay
http://mrmrsbeeze.blogspot.com/2012/05/brown-sugar-chicken-with-bell-pepper.html
Thanks so much for this recipe, it turned out great for me!
If anyone’s interested, here’s my experience with it: http://dontforgetrecipes.blogspot.com/2012/06/baked-brown-sugar-chicken-wings-with.html
Does it make a difference if you use minced garlic from a jar or garlic powder? Did not know there was dried minced garlic. Looking forward to trying this.
Perfect
I loooove this recipe! My husband goes crazy when I make this chicken. The tweaks I made are to this recipe: I like a lot of brown sugar so I add 2 heaping tablespoons, rather than 2 tsp. Also, I add a tablespoon each of garam masala and tumeric. I also cook at a lower temperature (350 degreees) and cook for a longer amount of time to roast the spices – yet maintain super moist meat. Everyone will rave about this chicken…also, I’ve never made the goat cheese/red pepper sauce because the chicken is so so delicious on it’s own and super flavorful. Make sure you have plenty of napkins on hand – you’ll need them! 🙂
Those alteration sound amazing! I’d love to try your version, sounds incredible 🙂
This recipe sounds amazing ! Can the chicken pieces be marinated overnight ? x
I think it’s worth a try!
Made these yesterday for the Super Bowl & they came out delish! Only thing I did different was add 2 tbs of brown sugar instead. Thanks for the recipe!!
Made these yesterday for the Super Bowl & they came out delish! Only thing I did different was add 2 tbs of brown sugar instead. Thanks for the recipe!!
This is what I did as well. I’m thinking there must have been a typing error and that 2 tsp of brown sugar should have been 2 TBS, otherwise, how could the dish be named Baked Brown Sugar Chicken Wings if it has so little sugar? By upping the sugar the balance of sweet to spicy hot was perfect. Oh, and we ended up using drumsticks due to cost. Wings are now around $4/lb in our area (and to think it used to be practically a throw-away part) and drumsticks can usually be found for $1-$2/lb.
I made these for 4th of July, and they were delicious! I included the recipe on my weekly dinner menu today: http://wearychef.com/2013/07/06/easy-weekly-dinner-menu-24/
Thanks!
Yay! I’m so glad 🙂
My sister and I just made this recipe. Neither of us was happy with it. The chicken was not very sweet and the dip was bitter. We both had to tweak the recipe to make it good enough to eat. If I decide to make my tweaked version of it in the future, I will not add sour cream to the goat cheese.
I love this recipe! I made it for my husband two weeks ago and he is still raving about it! I’m making it for dinner again tonight = ) Thank you so much for the wonderful recipe!
I’ve made this recipe twice now. Once with drumsticks and another time with chicken breast that I let marinated over night. They both came out kind of flavorless. Am I missing something here?
Make sure your spices are fresh! They lose potency if they start to go stale and you’ll lose a lot of flavor that way. Perhaps let the chicken rest with the spices for 20 min or so before baking so the ingredients have time to marry and stick to the chicken.
I’ve been making this for a few years now. It’s a family favorite! I’m making it Christamas evening when we’re having appetizer like food for dinner (spinach artichoke dip, queso dip, etc). I’m trying it on shrimp this time too.
Love the combination of sweet and savory ingredients. The sauce recipe is a nice bonus – I bet that would also be yummy on pasta too.
Could you use low fat cream cheese vs goat cheese?