Pepsi Cola Chicken Drumsticks!
Who doesn’t love drumsticks? While I don’t make them often, they are fun to serve at parties, or just hone hunkering down in front of the TV.
As a fan of Asian food, I am always looking for a new recipe – and I was surprised one day to find these “unique” potato chips – note the flavor:
Pepsi Chicken Potato Chips!
I discovered that in parts of Asia, cola-flavored chicken is hugely popular – as these “Pepsi Chicken Potato Chips” prove…so it made me want to find out for myself – just how good are “Pepsi Chicken Drumsticks?”
Well, I was determined to find out!
I found a number of recipes online, which gave me some ideas for the flavor combo that would work for me – and I settled on Pepsi, soy sauce and sweet rice wine cooking vinegar…infused with fresh garlic:
Here are the ingredients:
12 ounces Pepsi
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 to 4 tablespoons fresh chopped or grated ginger
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
The first thing I did was boil down the liquid: I added a bit of garlic powder after 15 minutes to give it a bit of a kick, but as you can see, you just want to gently boil it down until it feels like a syrupy glaze…
There are many recipes online: many use Ketchup, some add BBQ sauce, plus onion, garlic, etc. But I kept mine simple…and after 50-40 minutes of slowly reducing the liquid – stirring regularly, I ended up with a syrupy Pepsi glaze!
Bring On The Drumsticks!
The next part is pretty easy: while the sauce is reducing, turn on your grill or turn on your oven if you plan to cook them that way – and when the sauce is ready to go, put your raw chicken drumsticks on a platter and paint them with your glaze!
I laid the drumsticks out on my gas grill, then closed the cover and let them cook for 5 minutes before I flipped them and glazed them again:
The standard cooking method for these drumsticks is to flip them every 5-7 minutes until internal temp of 185-190 degrees. I didn’t want mine to become too charred, so I moved them to the upper level after 15 minutes and pulled them off after 25 minutes – and here’s what I got:
The Pepsi sauce glistened on the drumsticks, and the crispy char on some was a nice crunchy touch – the sauce was indeed heavily “pepsi-infused” – a bit sweet, a strong cola essence, but the ginger and soy also came through as well – I loved them!
Pepsi Chicken Is A “WIN!”
If you like chicken drumsticks, this is a nice alternative to traditional BBQ sauces.
My wife Alex wasn’t originally thrilled about the concept of “Pepsi Chicken”, but she liked them as well – not a huge fan of the sweetness, but it’s diluted enough by the soy, ginger and rice vinegar to keep it within bounds…now, as I said, I decided to make these because I saw “Pepsi Chicken? potato chips – just one unique Asian flavor – look at this one:
Hot And Sour Fish Soup Potato Chips!
Yes, this is a real potato chip flavor as well! It’s one of many I found – you can see them all here:
Let me know if you’ve tried “Pepsi Chicken” Drumsticks!
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This is a popular idea here in South AFrica too, John.
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It’s never been a thing in the US, but since we consume SO MUCH of the drink why not cook with it? Thanks for the comment!
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VEry interesting! Italians use mostly wine and herbs for flavoring poultry, so this kind of glazing is totally new to me!
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Yes, I can imagine that glazing isn’t used much, but why would you when you have so much natural goodness to cook with – thanks for the comment as always!
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Haven’t seen those crisps here yet but I am sure my grandson will tell me when they arrive here…I have seen a few recipes using Pepsi but not tried it yet…Your drumsticks look tasty and I am sure the ginger and mirin dumbed down the sweetness 🙂 x
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It did a lot, just a hint of cola flavor,w which I liked!
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These look absolutely delicious!
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They were! Not really sweet as much as a hint of cola goodness, probably less fattening than many BBQ sauces!
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And many bbq sauces do have quite a fair amount of sugar in them.
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Sounds good. I’ve cooked a ham in cola, which is good and not sweet.
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That sounds great!
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It is. We have it at Christmas because we don’t care for turkey.Maybe I should cook the turkey in cola?
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a cola glaze might in fact be good, since I do a bacon-wrapped maple glazed Turkey and it’s almost the same! Now I have to try that!
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Thinking about it though, we happily eat prawn cocktail flavour… so maybe I would try them.
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Yes, those actually sound good!
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Hmm think I would try the Pepsi chicken but the crisps sound awful.
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Yes but wait until I share the ones I have and will be doing a taste test for – a bit mind-blowing!
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That sounds like it would definitely work for me, John. My wife wouldn’t like that sweetness though, so maybe I will just make them for myself one day. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Pete, the ginger and soy really cut the “sweetness”, but I agree they are more for me than for my wife as well!
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