Smoked Pulled Chicken

Smoked pulled chicken melts in your mouth whether you serve it stand alone, with sauce, over a bun, or piled high with nachos. This tender, juicy meat is packed full of just enough BBQ flavor.

Smoking chicken is much faster than other meats such as pork and beef. It’s also a highly affordable protein that delivers excellent nutrition. You won’t regret smoking two chickens at the same time.

Yes, even if you don’t have a crowd to feed! This is one freezer-friendly food that can be used for so many recipes.

When you’re in a rush and need an even faster smoke, go for smoked chicken breast.

The smoker will elevate plain chicken to a BBQ restaurant-level meal with minimal effort!

🐔 Ingredients

Smoked Chicken | Use the smoked chicken that you finished or plan on smoking two of them at the same time. That allows you to eat one now, and shred the other for the week’s meals.

📝 How To Pull Chicken Meat

This is super simple to do and you have two different ways to do it.

Fork Method

Step One: Remove the skin from the chicken and remove the chicken from the bone.

Step Two: Place two forks back to back to each other in the chicken and pull them away from each other. Put the forks back together again in the same configuration and repeat until the chicken is fully shredded.

Stand Mixer Method

Step One: Remove the skin from the chicken and remove the chicken from the bone. Place the meat into the mixing bowl.

Step Two: Make sure the chicken is broken up into 3-5 pieces and start the mixer with the PADDLE on to the slowest setting. Do this for about 30 seconds as the larger pieces start to break down. Turn it faster when you can and the remaining pieces will pull apart. This should take around one minute for the chicken to completely shred.

🔥How To Smoke A Whole Chicken

Over time, we perfected our smoked whole chicken recipe to be as tasty as possible with very little work needed!

With 322 calories and 24 grams of protein per serving, smoked chicken is a nutritious meal that will pair nicely with any of these amazing BBQ chicken sides.

Here’s what you need to do:

Prepping The Chicken

• Make a dry brine. We used a simple combination of salt, black pepper, and Greek seasoning but you can use other ingredients such as garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, light or dark brown sugar, thyme, oregano, and others.
• Remove the livers and gizzards, rinse the chicken, and pat it dry using paper towels.
• Place the bird on a sheet pan with a raised grid rack.
• Apply the dry rub under the skin of the chicken and outside.
• Let the chicken sit in the fridge uncovered for 24-72 hours. The extended dry brining will help the chicken retain more moisture and turn out super juicy!

Tip: Optionally you can rub some olive oil, melted butter, or mustard on the chicken before coating it with the dry rub. Some people like to mix the mustard with apple cider. This will help the seasonings better stick to the surface of the bird.

Smoking The Chicken

• To smoke the chicken, set up the grill for indirect heat and preheat it to 250°F.
• Add wood chips. We used apple wood as the mild smoky flavor complements chicken meat nicely. You can use other mild types of wood such as cherry, pear, and peach. For a bolder smokey flavor, use hickory, pecan, or mesquite. Consult our free wood smoking cheat sheet for more options.
• Rub one tablespoon of olive oil on the chicken skin. This will make it extra crispy.
• Let the chicken smoke until it reaches an internal temperature of 165°F. Use an instant-read thermometer for accurate results. This will take approximately 40-50 minutes per pound.
• Once the safe internal temperature has been reached, remove the chicken and let it rest for 10 minutes before serving. Optionally, you can tent the bird with aluminum foil for the resting phase.

For more details refer to our smoked whole chicken recipe.

🍗Best Uses For Smoked Pulled Chicken

There are endless options of what to do with pulled chicken besides having it on a sandwich with barbecue sauce and coleslaw.

Also, you can use pulled chicken instead of pulled pork. Try it in sheet pan pulled pork nachos, and you won’t regret it. It would also work as a substitute in any of these leftover pulled pork recipes!

Of course, the meat is wonderful on its own and you can pair it with any of these BBQ chicken sides. Smoked mac and cheese, and smoked potato salad are two of my personal favorites.

Best BBQ Sauce Recipes For Smoked Pulled Chicken

Homemade BBQ sauce is the best and all the different combinations you can create will make your smoked pulled chicken an exciting adventure every time.

Pulled chicken and BBQ sauce is a classic pairing that will make a chicken sandwich irresistible. And don’t forget honey or brown sugar are not optional when making a homemade BBQ sauce!

Here are some of our favorite barbecue sauce recipes:

• Whiskey BBQ Sauce
• Smoked Pumpkin Bourbon BBQ Sauce
• Cherry Bourbon BBQ Sauce

How To Reheat

Depending on how you are going to use the chicken will depend on if you need to reheat it.

If you are using the smoked pulled chicken as a component of another recipe, then simply follow the instructions and add the chicken as required to heat.

I like eating the chicken with a fun salad, so I simply heat up the chicken with a little bit of water in the microwave for 1-2 minutes.

You have the same options for chicken as you do for reheating pulled pork. Read our guide to find out the best methods!

How To Freeze

Do it the same way as for freezing pulled pork. Divide the meat into one-cup servings and transfer to freezer-safe bags. This will allow you to pull out a bag to make a salad or a batch of taquitos without having to defrost three pounds of meat.

Step One: Scoop one-cup servings into each freezer-safe Ziploc bag and press out all the air and seal. Do this until all of the meat is bagged up.

Step Two: Take all of these smaller bags and put them into a large gallon-sized freezer-safe Ziploc bag. Press out the air and zip it closed.

❗ Expert Tips

Double bagging when freezing will secure the meat to stay so fresh that it will taste like the day you smoked it. Doing it this way will allow the meat to stay in the freezer for up to six months.

Don’t freeze all of the meat in one big lump in the freezer, even if you feel really lazy. It is too hard to get it apart and it makes you commit to using all of the chicken at once.

You can flatten the freezer bags with shredded meat before placing them in the freezer. They will occupy less space and thaw faster!

Other Smoked Chicken Recipes Perfect For Pulled Chicken

We love smoking a whole chicken but there are other options too. You can get wonderful pulled chicken using various parts of the bird and they’ll smoke faster too.

• Smoked Chicken Thighs
• Smoked Chicken Wings
• Smoked Chicken Quarters
• Smoked Chicken Breast (boneless, skinless chicken thighs would also work)
• Smoked Chicken Legs
• Smoked Spatchcock Chicken (the fastest way to smoke a whole bird)
• Smoked Beer Can Chicken (another method to smoke a whole chicken with delicious results)

Serving Suggestions

Recipe FAQ

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