A Delicious Beer Can Chicken Recipe for Your Next Cookout

Summer just ain’t summer without some serious grilling action going on.

As much as guys don’t like to cook in general, one place we’ll always step up to the plate is when it comes time to grill. It’s for this reason that I think the best way for men to begin to learn how to cook easy, healthy meals is outside, with a pile of coals and a ton of meat.

I told you earlier that buying whole chickens is the healthiest and most economical way to eat them. But that recipe is for roasting, a more appropriate alternative for when it’s cool outside and you want to warm the house up a bit. Today, let’s look at a beer can chicken recipe.

Oh yeah, you NEED beer for this recipe, too. Have I convinced you to start cooking yet?

The Ingredients

• Whole chicken (as many as you can fit on the grill)
• One can of beer for every chicken, plus a few more for good measure
• Salt and pepper

The Recipe

1. Get the grill going. Build up two piles of coal on opposite sides of the grill for indirect heating. If you have an electric grill, go out and buy a coal one instead, you sissy. Otherwise, set it to 350.
2. Take the giblets out of the chicken. Rinse and pat dry the bird and cover with salt and pepper.
3. Crack open one of the cans of beer and drink half of it. Put the beer can inside the chicken’s cavity and adjust it so the bird balances on the can without falling over.
4. Put the chicken(s) on the grill and cover. Get yourself another beer.
5. Cooking time is about 1 1/2 hours. During this time, the beer will steam up and keep the chicken nice and juicy. Halfway through, add more coal and rotate the birds if necessary.
6. The chicken is done when the outside is crispy but the juices from the thigh when you cut into it are clear. Remove from the grill and let sit 15 minutes before carving.

The Variations

Remember when I said to master the basics, then improvise as necessary? The above recipe is just a bit of a spin on the grilled salmon recipe I gave you earlier but slightly adjusted to cook a whole chicken. This beer can chicken recipe can also be spruced up a bit depending on your tastes so that it never gets boring.

• Rub the chicken with butter or olive oil before sprinkling the salt and pepper on it.
• To give it a bit more flavor, also cover the chicken with a dry rub or herbs such as rosemary and thyme.
• Chop up some onion and garlic to put in the chicken along with the beer can.

The Third Rule of LMVM Cooking: Eat More Meat

I know I have some vegetarian readers here. And while I certainly respect your decisions, from a health standpoint I am 100% convinced that eating more animal products is going to give people higher returns on their health than eating less. Having grown up during the “low fat, low cholesterol” diet craze that is still going on, I ate very little meat until recently and even went vegetarian for a while as I tried to avoid getting getting cancer and clogged arteries.

A lot of guys fear “healthy eating” because they believe it will be restricting meat consumption. Nonsense. By eating unprocessed meat, you get loads of complete protein, fat-soluble vitamins, and dietary fat. (Yes, fat is very, very good for you!) Meat is extremely satiating, which means you won’t be tempted to gorge yourself on the calorically dense but highly processed foods that really do lead to obesity and cardiovascular disease.

These days I eat tons of meat and eggs, and some dairy products as well (always full fat). During this time, I have gotten into the best shape of my life. If you are interested in reading more, there is no better resource than BeyondVeg, the website where I first started to realize that the whole “plant-based diet” we have been scared into following isn’t the whole truth.

Tagged as: chicken, cooking rules, fat, grilling, meat, real food