“Grilled Pepsi Chicken Drumsticks”! I Tackle Pepsi Glaze On My Food And Why Not!

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:


https://johnrieber.com/2012/12/11/pepsi-chicken-potato-chips-fish-soup-chips-china-goes-chip-flavor-crazy/

Let me know if you’ve tried “Pepsi Chicken” Drumsticks!



Categories: China, cookbooks, Food, food blog, Food Review, Pop Culture, Recipes, Restaurants, Travel, Travel Adventures, Travel Memoir, Wacky Food

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21 replies

  1. This is a popular idea here in South AFrica too, John.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. VEry interesting! Italians use mostly wine and herbs for flavoring poultry, so this kind of glazing is totally new to me!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. 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

    Liked by 1 person

  4. These look absolutely delicious!

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Sounds good. I’ve cooked a ham in cola, which is good and not sweet.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Thinking about it though, we happily eat prawn cocktail flavour… so maybe I would try them.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Hmm think I would try the Pepsi chicken but the crisps sound awful.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. 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.

    Liked by 1 person

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