spicy mississippi chicken

Spicy Mississippi Chicken Recipe

Spicy Mississippi Chicken Recipe

Chicken Leg Quarters were the first pieces of chicken that I learned to cook when I started out on my bbq journey. I could buy a bag of frozen quarters for .25 cents per pound, and that would feed a lot of people on the cheap.

Somewhere along the way I started calling this particular recipe my Spicy Mississippi Chicken and the name stuck….

You can use any piece of chicken for this recipe but I would definitely keep the skin on.

This recipe is all about the smoke and spice. There’s no marinade, brine, glaze or anything that will take away for the texture. The seasoning builds a nice crust on the skin and it’s almost crispy with a kick of heat.

Spicy Mississippi Chicken

For the seasoning I kept it pretty simple and used a combination of seasonings that were in the pantry. I knew I wanted it spicy so the whole thing revolved around the peppers. I used ground cayenne, crushed red pepper flakes, white pepper for back end heat and plenty of corse ground black. The heat was on point, and I used corse salt, sugar, onion and garlic flakes and few herbs to round it out. I used my Plastic Dredge Shaker with a wide-hole lid (You can also use this blend as a rotisserie seasoning; it goes great on pork).

Spicy Mississippi Chicken

You can cook this chicken on any grill or smoker; the key is the cook temperature. The pit needs to be running at 300 degrees to get the skin right. I used my Traeger pellet grill running with pecan pellets for this cook.

First I dried the skin with paper towel to remove any moisture then I coated each piece with a little peanut oil. The oil helps the seasoning stick and it also browns the skin.

Spicy Mississippi Chicken

Each piece of chicken is generously coated with the Spicy Chicken seasoning *recipe below. Place the seasoned chicken on the grill and cook until an internal meat thermometer reads 175 degrees in the thickest part of the thigh. If you’re cooking white meat chicken, it needs to hit 165 degrees internal – and I use my Thermoworks Thermapen to check my internals.

Spicy Mississippi Chicken

Once the chicken is done all you do is let it rest for 5 minutes and it’s ready to eat. Right away you’ll notice the skin is beautiful.

Spicy Mississippi Chicken

The spices and herbs give a crispy-like texture and it has a spicy punch without being too hot. You can always add different peppers or change the amount of each to give it even more kick!

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spicy Mississippi chicken

Spicy Mississippi Chicken Recipe


Description

This recipe is all about the smoke and spice. There’s no marinade, brine, glaze or anything that will take away for the texture. The seasoning builds a nice crust on the skin and it’s almost crispy with a kick of heat.


Ingredients

  • 4lb Fresh Chicken Leg Quarters, skin on (any pieces of chicken can be substituted)
  • ¼ Cup Peanut Oil
  • 3 Tablespoons Coarse Kosher Salt
  • 2 Tablespoons Sugar in Raw
  • 1 Tablespoon Paprika
  • 1 Tablespoon Smoked Paprika
  • 1 Tablespoon Herbs de Provence
  • ½ Tablespoon Coarse Ground Black Pepper
  • ½ Tablespoon Garlic Flakes
  • ½ Tablespoon Onion Flakes
  • 1 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
  • 1 Teaspoon White Pepper
  • 1 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper

Instructions

  1. Preheat pellet smoker to 300 degrees using pecan wood pellets for smoke flavor. You can use any grill or smoker for this recipe just keep the temperature steady at 300 degrees.
  2. Pat the chicken dry with paper towel to remove excess moisture. Trim away any unwanted skin or fat if necessary.
  3. Lightly brush the outer surface of each leg quarter with peanut oil.
  4. To make the spicy chicken seasoning: Combine the remaining ingredients in a jar and shake well.
  5. Place the seasoning in a shaker dredge with large openings. Coat the outside of the leg quarters with a medium heavy coat of the seasoning.
  6. Place each leg quarter on the pellet grill and cook until internal temperature reaches 175 degrees in the thickest part of the thigh. (For white meat the internal needs to reach 165 degrees)
  7. Remove each piece from the smoker and rest for 5 minutes before serving.
  • Category: smoked chicken
  • Cuisine: barbecue

Keywords: Spicy Mississippi Chicken, Spicy Smoked Chicken, smoked chicken quarters, bbq chicken, smoked chicken recipes, pellet smoker

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12 responses to “Spicy Mississippi Chicken Recipe”

  1. Gary Lee says:

    Great spicy flavorful chicken.

  2. D3DNS1D3 says:

    These chicken legs looked really good. Any chance you could feature some desserts on your YT channel? Seems like no one really pays them any attention! Thanks.

  3. Eddie Dolezal says:

    Malcom the Mississippi spicy chicken was awesome. Please bottle up that rub recipe and add it to your sales inventory. I made it on Sunday 8/30 and what a hit. My wife fried up some okra with it and all went well together. A little hint on fried okra. The basic batter for it is corn meal but we could never get it to stick well when the okra fried. My wife takes butter milk and beat one egg, add to the buttermilk, soak the okra for about an hour and then batter the okra in Hooters wing breading. I can purchase it at Kroger in the Houston area. The okra comes out with a very light batter and are awesome and went so well with the Spicy Mississippi Chicken. Keep these excellent recipes comming!

  4. This recipe was awesome! Up here in the north, we love trying southern recipes. Keep up the great work!

  5. Bill says:

    Malcom, do you think if I run the pit at 275F I will get the same texture on the skin. I am cooking the spicy chicken and also your BBQ Chicken recipe which calls for 275F

  6. Scott Snow says:

    tried this and the chicken was 170 after 1 hour. the skin was not crispy but the meat was delicious. cooked on BGE at 300

  7. Bo Catrino says:

    Great BBQ Show. I learned a few tricks Mike Mills. 17 th Street BBQ. Murphysboro Ill

  8. Jack Else says:

    Where do you get garlic flakes and onion flakes?

  9. Joe C says:

    Awesome recipe! Tastes great, easy fixings. Nice texture. Good color.
    Cooked on Rec Teq RT-340 pellet

  10. Craig says:

    In all your BBQ videos you do it would help us that live in cold parts of the world. If you would talk about temps in cold time of the year. We like smoked meat all year long spring summer fall or winter. Thanks Mr. O

  11. Michelle says:

    I made the rub for chicken breasts, skin on bone in, first time tonight, and it is *amazing*. We’re from south Louisiana and that rub still made us sit up straight and say slap ya momma! (Course if I slapped my momma, I’d be in major dirt, so that’s just an expression 😉 ). Will be checking out your site for more ideas!
    thanks!

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