Arnold Palmer Brined Chicken Recipe – Sweet Tea and Lemonade – chicken marinated overnight in tea, lemonade, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and rosemary. Super easy to make and has tons of great flavor! Can cook the chicken on the grill or indoors on the stove and oven. Great for all of your summer cookouts, potlucks, and picnics. This is a new family favorite!
Originally posted April 6, 2016
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Sweet Tea Brined Chicken
This Arnold Palmer Brined Chicken (Sweet Tea and Lemonade) is a new favorite at our house. This recipe is super easy to make and is packed full of flavor! Chicken marinated overnight in tea, lemonade, onions, garlic, and rosemary. OMG! SO good! We always make a double batch so we can have leftovers. It is crazy delicious! Leftovers are great chopped up on top of a salad or in a sandwich wrap. YUM! Give this recipe a try the next time you fire up the grill!
What is an Arnold Palmer?
An Arnold Palmer drink is half tea half lemonade. Per Wikipedia, Palmer “was in the habit of drinking iced tea with lemonade at home, and in 1960 at the U.S. Open at the Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, he ordered the non-alcoholic drink at the bar. A woman sitting nearby overheard him, and ordered “that Palmer drink”, thus giving the beverage its name.”
How to Make Arnold Palmer Brined Chicken
This chicken is super easy to make with only a few simple ingredients. In a large pot, bring water to a boil. Add tea bags and remove from heat. Cover the pot and let the tea steep for 10 minutes. Discard tea bags. Stir in lemonade concentrate, kosher salt, sliced onion, garlic cloves, fresh rosemary sprigs, and black pepper. Heat on medium-high heat until the salt dissolves. Remove from heat at cool completely. Stir in ice cubes.
Place chicken in a large zip-top plastic freezer bag. Pour tea mixture over the chicken and seal. Place bag in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.
When ready to grill, remove the chicken from the brine. Pat chicken dry with paper towels and cook on the grill or in the oven. Garnish the chicken with fresh lemons and rosemary.
Helpful Tips & Frequently Asked Questions
- Why Brine Chicken? Brining chicken ensures your chicken will be tender, juicy and packed full of flavor. I mean, nobody likes dry flavorless chicken!
- You can use this marinade on any cut of chicken – breasts, tenders, thighs, wings, or drumsticks/legs. This brine is equally delicious on turkeys.
- You can use boneless or bone-in chicken. Cook until a meat thermometer registers an internal temperature of 165ºF.
- I suggest pounding the chicken breast to an even thickness. We put the chicken in a ziplock bag and use a flat meat mallet to carefully pound out the hump. This ensures that the chicken cooks evenly and you don’t have juicy chicken and half-dry chicken.
- I don’t have a grill. Can I cook the chicken breasts in the oven or skillet? Yes! To cook the chicken breasts inside, pan-sear it for 3 to 4 minutes per side. Place on a rimmed baking sheet or baking dish. Bake at 400ºF for 10 minutes, until it reaches an internal temperature of 165ºF.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
What to Serve with Grilled Chicken
We ate this juicy chicken for lunch and had the leftover for dinner and for lunch during the week. It has tons of great flavor and it is a little tangy from the lemonade. We serve this with our favorite potato casserole and some green beans. This is definitely a new favorite!
Looking for more side dish recipes? Here are a few of our favorite recipes from the blog that go great with this easy grilled chicken:
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Arnold Palmer Chicken
Yield: 6 people
Arnold Palmer Chicken Recipe – Sweet Tea and Lemonade Brined Chicken – chicken marinated overnight in tea, lemonade, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and rosemary. Super easy to make and has tons of great flavor! Can cook the chicken on the grill or indoors on the stove and oven. Great for all of your summer cookouts, potlucks, and picnics. This is a new family favorite!
- 6 tea bags
- 3 cups water
- 1 cup thawed frozen lemonade concentrate
- ¼ cup kosher salt
- 1 small sweet onion thinly sliced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 2 fresh rosemary sprigs
- 1 Tbsp freshly cracked pepper
- 2 cups ice cubes
- 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded to an even thickness
-
Bring 3 cups water to a boil in a saucepan; add tea bags. Remove from heat; cover and steep 10 minutes.
-
Discard tea bags. Stir in lemonade, salt, onion, garlic, rosemary and pepper. Heat over medium heat just until the salt dissolves.
-
Cool completely; stir in ice.
-
Place tea mixture and chicken in a large zip-top plastic freezer bag; seal. Refrigerate up to 24 hours.
-
Remove chicken from marinade, and grill until done, approximately 10 minutes.
Steph
Remember this recipe.
Pin this recipe to your favorite board now to remember it later!
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