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    🏠Home » Recipes » Chicken Recipes

    Easy Baked BBQ Split Chicken Breasts

    May 21, 2011 by Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan · Last modified: Jun 5, 2023 · 5 Comments

    Jump to Recipe Table of Contents Print     Email Pin
    4.07 from 77 votes

    Baked BBQ Split Chicken Breasts only takes 2 ingredients and a few knife skills. This is an economical recipe for moist and tender chicken with a wonderful taste.

    a piece of BBQ Split Chicken Breast on a white plate
    Jump To:
    • 👨‍🍳How to Cook Baked BBQ Split Chicken Breasts
    • ✔️Tips
    • 🐓About Skin-on Bone-in (Split) Chicken Breasts
    • ❓FAQs
    • ❄️Leftover storage and reheating
    • Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
    • 📖 Recipe
    Blue ribbon divider used for visual effect

    Split chicken breasts are very economical, but most people have no idea how to cook them. It doesn't get simpler than this. Cut up the chicken, bake, and then baste a few times—a cooking skill level of 2/10. You can do it.

    This easy step-by-step recipe for BBQ chicken produces moist and tender results with no skill. It only needs two ingredients—the chicken and BBQ sauce.

    The most important part of this recipe is trimming the chicken into serving-size pieces, which aids in cooking and serving.

    The quality of your results is also dependent on your BBQ sauce. If you have a sauce you love, use it. If not, use my Memphis BBQ Sauce, which you will love.

    Serve with Oven Fried Chicken, Cornmeal Biscuits, or Corn on the Cob.

    Check out some other great recipes, like Grilled BBQ Split Chicken Breast, Crispy Baked Split Chicken Breasts, Mayonnaise Parmesan Split Chicken Breasts, and BBQ Shredded Pork Loin for Pulled Pork in the Oven.

    👨‍🍳How to Cook Baked BBQ Split Chicken Breasts

    1. Preheat the oven and prepare a baking tray with foil, a rack (optional), and a coat of PAM cooking spray.
    2. Trim skin-on-bone-in chicken breasts (split breasts) by removing the rib section and cutting it into serving-size pieces.
    3. Bake the chicken for about 35-40 minutes and an internal temperature of 155° to 160°.
    4. Brush the chicken with BBQ sauce and bake until 165°.
    5. Remove from the oven and brush with sauce again. Rest for 5 minutes and serve.

    ✔️Tips

    • Be sure to cut the chicken into more reasonable-sized pieces for cooking and serving reasons.
    • Since the sauce provides all the seasoning, there is no reason for another seasoning. Also, oil is not needed.
    • We no longer recommend washing chicken; just a good pat dry is all that is needed. For more information, please see Chicken... To Rinse or Not To Rinse?

    🐓About Skin-on Bone-in (Split) Chicken Breasts

    Skin-on-bone-in chicken breasts are also known as split chicken breasts. They are called split chicken breasts because, during processing, the entire breast is removed with some ribs. It is then "split" down the middle of the breast bone to produce two pieces.

    Many people feel they have more taste and moisture than the skinless boneless variety.

    ❓FAQs

    Why cut up the split chicken breasts?

    If there is a “secret,” it is how to prepare a split chicken breast for cooking. Trimming into smaller pieces makes it much easier to get a safe final internal temperature of 165° without overcooking to the surface (good). It makes more surface area for seasoning (good). And makes more reasonably sized servings (also good).

    Step one is cutting off the attached rib section. There is no meat; it takes seasoning and tends to burn. Not a must-do but a nice touch.

    Step two is to cut it into two or three equal pieces. Trying to cook the whole thing at once will almost always burn it on the outside before reaching a safe 165° internal temperature.

    What is the best BBQ sauce to use for BBQ chicken?

    Chicken tastes best with a BBQ sauce with some sweetness. That is usually a Memphis or Kansas City sauce.

    I prefer my Gate's BBQ sauce from Kansas City or my homemade Memphis Barbecue Sauce. Cooks Illustrated like Bull's-eye Original or Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce. But use the sauce you love.

    ❄️Leftover storage and reheating

    Store leftovers in an airtight container, then refrigerate for 3 days or freeze for 3 months.

    I like my leftover BBQ chicken cold, but reheating it in the oven in a covered dish is preferred. A microwave will change the texture of the chicken and its skin.

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    ↑Jump to Table of Contents

    This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.

    BBQ Recipes, Chicken Recipes
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    Step-by-Step Photo Instructions

    Trimming ribs off split chicken breasts on black board

    Start with preheating the oven to 400° convection or 425° conventional.

    cutting a split chicken breast in half with knife

    Trim the rib section off the chicken breasts and divide the chicken breasts into 2-3 equal size pieces each—pat dry.

    spraying a rack on baking sheet with PAM

    Prepare a smaller baking pan with aluminum foil (to help clean up) and a cooking rack sprayed with PAM. If you don't have a rack, you can skip it.

    chicken breast halves on rack

    Arrange the breast with the thicker parts of each piece to the outside of the pan. (Image still has ribs attached.)

    brushing sauce on cooked chicken

    Bake until internal temp of 155° to 160°. That will be about 35 to 40 minutes, depending on your oven and the size of the breasts. Remove from oven and brush on a coat of sauce. Place back in the oven until the chicken is at least 165° before removing—about 5 minutes.

    BBQ chicken breasts on white plate

    After removing from the oven, apply another coat of sauce.

    ↑Jump to Table of Contents

    📖 Recipe

    BBQ chicken breast on white plate

    Easy Baked BBQ Split (Bone-in Skin-on) Chicken Breasts

    From Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
    Baked BBQ Split (Bone-in Skin-on) Chicken Breasts only takes 2 ingredients and a few knife skills. This is an economical recipe for moist and tender chicken.
    Tap to leave a Rating
    4.07 from 77 votes
    Print Email CollectionCollected
    Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes
    Cook Time: 45 minutes minutes
    Total Time: 50 minutes minutes
    Servings #/Adjust if desired 4 servings

    Ingredients

    US Customary - Convert to Metric
    • 2 split chicken breast
    • ½ cup BBQ sauce of choice
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    Instructions

    • Start with preheating the oven to 400° convection or 425° conventional. Trim the rib section off the chicken breasts
      cutting ribs off a split chicken breast
    • Divide the chicken breasts into 2-3 equal size pieces each—pat dry.
      cutting a split chicken breast in half with knife
    • Prepare a smaller baking pan with aluminum foil (to help clean up) and a cooking rack sprayed with PAM. If you don't have a rack, you can skip it.
      spraying a rack on baking sheet with PAM
    • Arrange the breast with the thicker parts of each piece to the outside of the pan.
      chicken breast halves on rack
    • Bake until internal temp of 155° to 160°. That will be about 35 to 40 minutes, depending on your oven and the size of the breasts. Remove from oven and brush on a coat of sauce. Place back in the oven until the chicken is at least 165° before removing—about 5 minutes.
      brushing sauce on cooked chicken
    • Remove from oven and apply another coat of sauce.
      BBQ chicken breasts on white plate
    See the step-by-step photos in the post. Some recipes have an option to display the photos here with a switch above these instructions but the photos DO NOT print.

    Your Own Private Notes

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    Recipe Notes

    Pro Tips

    1. Scale to the amount you need.
    2. Use a sauce you love. I usually use my Memphis sauce.
    3. No other seasoning is needed.
    4. The rack is nice to use but not required. Just a good coat of PAM on the foil will do.
    5. Arrange the chicken with the thickest part to the outside of the tray. This will help a lot in even cooking.
    6. Good refrigerated for 3-4 days.
    7. I never brine skin-on chicken breasts. They stay very moist anyway.
    8. Just pat dry the breasts. For safety, we do not recommend rinsing chicken.

    To adjust the recipe size:

    You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.

    Nutrition Estimate

    Serving : 100 gCalories : 217 kcal (11%)Carbohydrates : 15 g (5%)Protein : 19 g (38%)Fat : 9 g (14%)Saturated Fat : 2 g (10%)Cholesterol : 58 mg (19%)Sodium : 424 mg (18%)Potassium : 282 mg (8%)Fiber : 1 g (4%)Sugar : 12 g (13%)Vitamin A : 155 IU (3%)Vitamin C : 1 mg (1%)Calcium : 22 mg (2%)Iron : 1 mg (6%)
    Serving size is my estimate of a normal size unless stated otherwise. The number of servings per recipe is stated above. This is home cooking, and there are many variables. All nutritional information are estimates and may vary from your actual results. To taste ingredients such as salt will be my estimate of the average used.
    Course : Main|Main Course
    Cuisine : American

    © 101 Cooking for Two, LLC. All content and photographs are copyright protected by us or our vendors. While we appreciate your sharing our recipes, please realize copying, pasting, or duplicating full recipes to any social media, website, or electronic/printed media is strictly prohibited and a violation of our copyrights.

    Editor's note: Originally published May 21, 2011. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.

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    1. Deborah

      February 27, 2019 at 10:35 pm

      Chicken barbecue is an art that even competition grillers hate. I was lazy and wanted to cook indoors. This is awesome. Perfect consistency and moist. Thant you.

      Reply
      • DrDan

        March 04, 2019 at 4:03 pm

        Hi Deborah,
        Welcome to the blog. Sorry for the delayed response.
        The oven does save a lot of work and actually hard to get wrong.
        Glad you enjoyed the recipe and thanks for the note.
        Dan

    2. Maya

      April 26, 2018 at 7:36 pm

      Hi Dan.
      Thx for the bbq chick recipe. I was afraid of the high oven temp 425 but I gave it a whirl. The 40 min was perfect. They came out very good. (My mom always said 350 was for baking not for cooking meat. )

      Reply
      • DrDan

        May 08, 2018 at 1:12 pm

        Hi Maya,
        Sorry for the delayed responce.
        I do a bit more higher temperature cooking than most. Thinks like this and chicken legs and thighs just do better at the higher temperatures. They are just more moist if you don't overcook them.
        Thanks for the note.
        Dan

    3. Inspired by eRecipeCards

      August 04, 2011 at 2:33 pm

      hey Doc... I just made one of your recipes and posted on my new blog...
      erecipecards

      Reply

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