How do I properly grill a chicken thigh, leg or breast (not breast fillet) to cook it through? Every time I try, there’s usually completely uncooked meat (I don’t mind rare…love it in fact…this stuff is RAW) below the surface. I then end up having to slice the chicken to expose that meat, but then the juice runs out and it’s dry.
What’s the secret?
Boil the chicken first until it’s about halfway cooked, then season/baste, then grill. And I’m not positive, but I don’t think you’re supposed to ever eat poultry rare.
The mistake I made when I first started grilling was that I used a much too high flame. Do not look to commericals for flame-grilled food, they ALWAYS show a ridiculously high flame. My chicken breast was charcoal on the outside, raw in the middle.
My technique now is to use a lower flame, and flip it several times.
I suppose boiling it first might work too, but I never had the need. And I wonder if any flavor gets boiled away.
Buy a meat thermometer. Stick it in your chicken, making sure the probe is in the center of the chicken piece. Grill your heart out. When the temp gets to 160 degrees, your chicken is fully cooked and safe to eat. Of course the juices run out when you slice it open. Visual inspection is no way to determine if any meat is properly cooked.
The OP is just one reason I do not eat land animals any more.
Revtim called it…low and slow is the way to grill chicken. Turn several times, and don’t pierce until you think it is done. If you let the juices out, what you are left with is shoe leather. Low and slow, baste with citrus juice, and be patient. Real chicken takes time. 
You’re cooking too hot. Turn it down, move the chicken over to the cooler areas of your grill, and keep flipping that bird. Don’t try to sear your meat like you would beef - you want to get the middle good and warm.
This recipe is not copyrighted… yet. (If any of you print this and make a million dollars, I’ll find you and throw such a tantrum.)
Melt 1 stick butter over 1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar. Do not boil. Add 1/4 cup light olive oil. Do not boil. (This much fat is highly flammable, so do not allow it to boil.) Add one medium minced onion and 2-3 cloves of minced garlic. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes. Do not boil.
Whisk the sauce real good.
Cover the grill with heavy duty tin foil. Cut slits in the foil to allow fat to drain but not allow fames to touch your chicken. Spray the foil with non-stick cooking spray. Set up a low flame.
Dip the pieces in the sauce before you put them on the grill.
Bone-less chicken will take a half hour to cook. Bone-in chicken will take an hour. Flip the chicken pieces every five minutes applying the sauce before and after you flip. Keep the chicken wet, and you should be fine.
If you are really worried about the whether your chicken is cooked you may want to invest in a $2 meat thermometer/probe. The internal temperature of chicken should be no less than 180F.
Now, now. While that may make the chicken hot under the collar, that’s not going to help cook it at all!
Low and slow, as stated above, is the correct method to grill chicken. And the best way to achieve low and slow, both for chicken or any larger chunk of meat such as tri-tip or a roast, is indirect heat. The following instructions will assume you are using charcoal as your heating method.
After your coals are well started, scrape them to either side of the 'que, forming two heaps against the sides of the structure. Some 'ques come with little “barricades” for just this purpose, to keep the coals to the side. Line up your chicken pieces down the center of the grill, skin side up, over the area which is now coal-less. Cover the 'que. Your chicken will cook thoroughly to the bone without any tending except for a basting, if you wish. After about 15-20 minutes, it should be done; if you like stripey grill marks on the skin, flip them over onto the coal-stoked areas for a minute or two.
We did tri-tip and chicken thighs using this method just this last weekend, and everything came out perfectly. Yum!
Yes. It may seem obvious, but in retrospect, it took me a while to figure it out: Close the lid. Trap the heat in the grill and make an oven out of it. It’ll help you cook the chicken through instead of just blackening the bottom. Some foods work really well on an open grill, where you’re searing the outside and trapping juices in rare or semi-rare meat inside and letting the rest of the heat escape; steak and halibut are examples. Chicken, by contrast, doesn’t cook very well this way.
Agree with the lower and slower suggestions but the one thing I do different from others is I only flip it once. I’ll turn it a couple of times to insure all one side is equally exposed to the heat source and to give each side that X grill mark but only flip it once. Generally, the more you flip and grill meat the drier it’ll be. I like mine moist but, of course, YMMV.
Errr… make that "the more you flip any grilled meat…
One trick I’ve learned regarding the coals/indirect heat: Use an inexpensive roasting pan when grilling.
I’ll buy one of those cheapo, $3 aluminum-foil pans before I grill chicken. I turn it upside down on the bottom of the grill, then heap the coals over it as I normally do when building the fire. Light the coals, and let them ash over. Once they’re ready, I scrape them to the sides, exposing the bottom of the upside-down foil pan.
This lets me get the coals nice and hot using the tried-and-true pyramid-stack method of building the fire, and it also gives me a good indirect-heat area right in the center of the grill on which I can cook the chicken.
Note: Pans used this way tend to get blackened from the charcoal, which is why I don’t use the good cookware when grilling chicken. The cheapo foil pans work just fine.
I would advise against cooking your chicken to 180 degrees internal temperature unless you want chicken jerky. Salmonella is killed at 165 degrees (or 140 degrees for 14 minutes)* so anything more than that is just going to wring more moisture and flavour out of the meat.
I use a digital thermometer with a probe and set it for 160 degrees. when it hits that, I remove the meat and let it rest for 10 minutes under tinfoil, the meat will continue to cook and will coast to 165. I’ve never had a problem with any food cooked in this manner.
Remember that most bacteria are on the outside surface of the meat so the more surface area, the more careful you need to be with cooking. a steak that is seared on all sides-not much of a problem there, a pile of ground beef with lots and lots of surface area that is hidden-Big Problem.
*Alton Browns’ I’m Just Here For The Food pp. 263-266
Yes, but that’s why I meant 160F.
Furrfu, how hard is it for people to understand they should listen to what I mean, not what I say?
No worries Mausmagill. In fact the Gov’t says to cook to 180 but that’s just a typical litigation leery CYA there.
I cook pork to only 150-155 as well, I HATE dry white pork! Come to think of it, I don’t like any meat cooked beyond medium, not even bacon.
I just use a George Foreman grill.
Seven minutes on each side, and it’s done!
Take lots of pictures of the piece of chicken naked, wearing a leash held by a woman.
[sub]'cause, y’know, “grill” can also mean to interrogate… never mind[/sub]
BAH, MrEkers - and it was such a happy educational, hungry-making thread till now!