Our Smoky Chipotle Dressing is a best-of-both-worlds combination of mole and barbecue sauce. Its complex flavor adds a robust blend of fruity, spicy, sweet, and smoky notes as a marinade for grilled chicken. Marinating your food before cooking is one of the easiest hands-off ways to bring your meal to the next level. They add more flavor to your food and make it more tender by beginning to break down the proteins before cooking. Marinades are also particularly important for grilling because of the high heat that often dries food out.
Fat is also an essential component to a good marinade because it helps evenly distribute the flavors of all the herbs and spices into every crevice of your food. Our Smoky Chipotle Dressing is packed with healthy, unsaturated fats from watermelon seeds and a neutral, high-quality sunflower oil.
Smoky Chipotle Dressing is the perfect chicken marinade because of its bold flavors that penetrate the meat, but also because of its low sodium content. Adding too much salt to a marinade can actually draw moisture out of your food, which is the opposite of what you want. As with all of our Dressings, Smoky Chipotle is not overly acidic by itself, so by just adding a little lime juice, or whatever neutral vinegar or wine you already have on hand, you’re good to go — no dicing, slicing, or mincing needed.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Smoky Chipotle Dressing
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 5-6 chicken thighs
Directions
In a large Ziploc bag or glass or food-safe plastic bowl, mix together the Smoky Chipotle Dressing and lime juice. Add the chicken and toss to thoroughly coat. Let marinate for 30 minutes to 4 hours in the fridge. The longer it marinates, the more the flavors of the Dressing will meld with the meat.
Note: The marinade will thicken over time as the lime juice breaks down not only the protein in the meat, but also the seed-based protein in the Dressing.
When your chicken is done marinating, preheat your grill (or a cast iron skillet) to medium high heat.
Cook chicken with the grill lid closed until browned or blackened on the first side. Then flip chicken, close the lid, and cook until it is fully cooked (or registering 165º on a meat thermometer). For bone-in thighs, cook for about 8-10 minutes per side. For boneless chicken, cook for about 6 minutes per side.
Serve with a fresh sprinkle of salt, lime wedges and, if desired, more Smoky Chipotle Dressing drizzled on top.
