Jamie Oliver Grilled Chilli & Lemon Chicken

Jamie Oliver’s grilled chilli and lemon chicken spatchcocks a whole bird, rubs it with a piri piri-style sauce of charred chillies, roasted garlic, toasted bay, thyme and lemon, then slow-grills it flat on the cool zone of a barbecue for an hour. Half the sauce marinates the chicken, half is reserved raw for spooning over at the table. It serves six at 353 kcal.

The recipe is from Jamie Oliver’s BBQ book. Oliver describes it as bringing “piri piri vibes,” and the double-use sauce is the whole concept: making one batch and splitting it between cooking and serving means you get the deep, cooked-in flavour from the marinade and the fresh, punchy hit from the reserved salsa on the same plate. Double flavour impact from a single recipe.

The channel barbecue setup is the technique that makes it work. Coals banked at both sides of the grill with a clear channel down the middle turns the barbecue into a slow oven, cooking the chicken with indirect, all-round heat rather than searing it over direct flame. That’s how you cook a whole spatchcocked bird for an hour without burning the skin to charcoal.

Jamie Oliver Grilled Chilli & Lemon Chicken

Recipe by Pinch Perfect

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: Dinner, LunchCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

30

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

30

minutes

Calories

353

kcal

Total time

2

hours 

Jamie Oliver’s piri piri-style barbecue chicken from his BBQ book: a whole spatchcocked bird rubbed with a charred-chilli, garlic, bay and lemon sauce, slow-grilled for an hour on indirect heat. Half the sauce is the marinade, the other half is the salsa. Serves six.

Ingredients

• 9 mixed-colour chillies

• 1 long red pepper

• 1 bulb of garlic

• 4 bay leaves

• ½ teaspoon dried red chilli flakes

• 1 bunch of thyme (20g)

• 1 lemon

• red wine vinegar

• extra virgin olive oil

• 1 x 1.5kg free-range whole chicken

• optional: sprigs of bay, thyme and rosemary

Directions

• Char the aromatics:Light the barbecue. Prick the chillies and pepper and char them with the whole garlic bulb over the hot zone, lid on, vents open.
• Build the sauce:Toast the bay leaves on the grill for 30 seconds, tear into a pestle and mortar (discarding stalks), add the chilli flakes and a pinch of salt, strip in the thyme and pound well. Use a speed peeler to strip in the lemon peel and pound to a rough paste. Remove the lemon’s white pith, finely chop the flesh and muddle in with 2 tablespoons each of red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.
• Add the charred ingredients:Scrape the worst charred skin from the chillies and pepper, discard seeds and stalks, peel the garlic, then finely chop it all. Scrape into the mortar, mix and season.
• Spatchcock and rub:Cut down the back of the chicken with a sharp knife and open it flat like a book, scoring the legs. Reserve half the sauce in a small bowl for serving. Rub the rest over the chicken, getting into every nook and cranny.
• Slow-grill:Set up a channel (coals at both sides, clear channel in the middle). Place the chicken breast-side up on the cool zone, tucking woody herb sprigs around the edges for protection if you like. Cook lid on, vents open, for 1 hour, until juicy, cooked through and the internal temperature reads 65-70°C.
• Rest:Move to a clean board and rest for 30 minutes (internal temp should reach 75°C).
• Serve:Spoon over the reserved raw sauce and carve. Oliver suggests grilled chips, sweet potato wedges or sriracha corn alongside.

FAQs

What is the channel barbecue setup?

It’s the third setup in Oliver’s BBQ book, after the 50/50 and the graduated slope. You pile coals evenly at both sides of the barbecue, leaving a clear, coal-free channel down the middle. The chicken sits in that channel, cooking by indirect, all-round heat rather than direct flame, which turns the barbecue into a slow oven.

This is essential for a whole spatchcocked bird, because direct heat would burn the skin long before the thickest part of the thigh cooked through. The channel gives you a steady, gentle 160-180°C all around, cooking the chicken evenly for an hour without any need to move it. It’s the same principle behind a beer-can chicken or a barbecue turkey.

Why split the sauce in half?

Because cooked sauce and raw sauce taste completely different. The half rubbed onto the chicken before grilling caramelises, mellows and sinks into the meat over an hour, giving a deep, roasted chilli flavour. The half reserved and spooned over at the end is fresh, sharp, punchy and vivid, hitting you with raw garlic, lemon and vinegar that the cooking would have softened.

The same sauce, two completely different characters. It’s genuinely clever and means you don’t need a separate marinade and salsa recipe. Oliver calls it “double flavour impact,” and it’s the single best technique in the recipe.

How do I spatchcock the chicken?

Use a large, sharp knife or poultry shears to cut down both sides of the backbone, remove it entirely, then open the bird out flat like a book and press down firmly on the breastbone until it cracks and the chicken lies flat. Score the legs with a few cuts so the marinade penetrates the thickest meat.

Spatchcocking halves the cooking time compared to roasting a bird upright, and it exposes the entire surface to the grill’s heat, so the skin crisps evenly. Most butchers will do it for you if you ask, saving you the surgery.

Is nine chillies too many? How hot is this?

It’s properly spicy but not brutal. Nine mixed-colour chillies sounds alarming, but charring them first softens their heat, and deseeding removes the fieriest part. Mixed colours (red, green, yellow) also means a range of heat levels, since ripe red chillies tend to be sweeter and milder than green ones.

If you’re worried, start with fewer and taste the sauce before rubbing it on the chicken. The reserved half lets you adjust: you can add more chilli or more lemon to the serving sauce. The piri piri spirit is meant to be bold, so don’t be too cautious, but adapt to your table.

Can I cook this in an oven instead?

Yes. Spatchcock the chicken, rub with the sauce and roast at 190°C/170°C fan for 45-50 minutes, until the juices run clear and the internal temperature hits 75°C. You lose the smoky, charcoal-charred flavour, but the chilli-lemon sauce is strong enough to carry the dish without it.

For the charred chillies, pepper and garlic, blister them under a hot kitchen grill or directly over a gas flame until blackened, then build the sauce the same way. The sauce is really the star; the barbecue adds smokiness but isn’t structurally essential.

What should I serve alongside?

Oliver suggests his grilled chips, sweet potato wedges or his sriracha corn from the same book, and the sriracha corn is the perfect quick side to put on while the chicken slow-grills, since it only needs 10 minutes on the grate.

For a full BBQ book spread, start with his halloumi and strawberry skewers while the chicken cooks on the cool zone, serve the grilled green grain salad alongside the carved bird, and finish with the romesco cauliflower as a vegetable side. Four dishes, all from the same book, all grilled simultaneously on different zones.