These grilled butterflied chicken drumsticks take a small bit of prep work, but the results are uniquely delicious! This Sip Bite Go grill recipe is a great alternative to chicken wings when you just have chicken legs on hand. Let’s fire up the grill!
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Table of Contents
Why Grilled Butterflied Chicken Legs are a must make recipe…
- Simple recipe. Butterflying the chicken and seasoning the legs takes less than 15 minutes!
- Load up your favorite BBQ rub and sauce.
- Quick cooking time! These won’t take long on a fire hot grill. Just a few minutes then you’ll be ready to deavor.
- TONS OF FLAVOR!! You get more seasoning coverage when you butterfly chicken legs this way, than when you make traditional grilled chicken thighs or legs.
- Even grilling experience. The chicken meat lays pretty flat and even for easy, consistent grilling temps all around.
New to grilling foods? See my step by step video for beginners (scroll to bottom of page).
Also see how to make smoked butterflied chicken legs…
Ingredients
Here’s what you need to make grilled butterflied chicken legs / drumsticks.
- Chicken drumsticks, aka chicken legs, bone-in with skin on or off (about 8 chicken drums)
- BBQ rub (any chicken bbq seasoning will work, too, as much as you’d like)
- Olive oil
- BBQ sauce
- Honey
- Cilantro, fresh chopped (optional, for serving)
How to make BBQ Grilled Butterflied Chicken Legs / Drumsticks
Now I’ll walk you through it…
Quick look at grilling butterfly drumsticks…
- Preheat the grill to 500 degrees F.
- Butterfly chicken legs (make 3 cuts, see full description) with a paring knife.
- Season butterflied chicken legs with dry rub.
- Grill butterflied chicken legs skin side facing down for 5 minutes with the lid closed.
- Flip the butterflied chicken legs and brush honey BBQ sauce on top and grill for 5 – 10 more minutes.
- Finish grilled butterflied chicken legs once the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees F – 175 degrees F.
- Rest for 2-3 minutes then enjoy!
Detailed recipe steps
- Season butterflied chicken drumsticks before grilling them. Sprinkle seasoning all over the chicken and rub it in with your hands. Drizzle olive oil on top of the butterflied chicken legs and brush to lightly coat them, which will prevent them from sticking to the grill grates as they cook.
- Prep honey BBQ sauce. Mix BBQ sauce in a small bowl with honey. Set aside.
- Preheat gas or charcoal grill to high, about 500 degrees F. Optional, recommended grill setup – If you have multiple burners, create a direct heat / indirect heat situation in the grill by turning on half or most of the burners (we turned on two burners, the left and center ones) and leave one OFF (we left the right burner turned off).
- Place butterflied chicken legs / drumsticks on the gas grill grates (with the meat side facing down), directly over heat (above the flame), with the grill lid closed for 5 minutes.
- Flip butterflied grilled chicken legs and brush honey BBQ sauce on top (the meaty side which should now have beautiful grill marks).
- Close the lid and finish grilling butterflied chicken legs for about 5-10 more minutes, until done.
- Tip… if your grilled butterfly chicken drumsticks aren’t cooking evenly – If for some reason the outside of the chicken starts burning but the inside isn’t reaching the done temperature, move the chicken to indirect heat (without flame directly below it) or to a higher grill grate to help it cool lower and slower and remove it from the grill flame where the outside will get scorched. That shouldn’t happen, but, just in case!
- Remove when they reach 165 to 175 degrees F as measured with an internal read thermometer.
- Rest and enjoy with a sprinkle of cilantro on top.
Also see how to grill chicken thighs and how to smoke chicken thighs…
FAQs
This is a quick cook. Grilling butterflied chicken legs will take 15 – 20 minutes for them to reach an internal temperature of 165 – 175 degrees F.
This is a simple process which will take only 15 minutes to prepare a couple of pounds of chicken legs like I did in this recipe.
Start by getting a sharp knife (I used a paring knife), and gently make one cut down the leg touching the bone. Next, you’ll make two cuts.
One on each side of the chicken leg bone. You’ll want to use one hand to pull back the leg meat while the other hand makes the cuts.
Slicing the meat this way will make it butterfly outwards on each side of the bone.
Don’t cut all the way through the meat, that would defeat the purpose.
At the end of your cuts, you should clearly see the chicken bone with chicken meat flaps on each side.
Butterflied drumsticks on the grill are super versatile. In this recipe, I used a simple dry rub and honey BBQ sauce. If you want to season it differently, a brown sugar dry rub would sweeten it up a bit.
Alternatively you could finish it with hot sauce instead of BBQ sauce if you want something spicier. You can’t go wrong either way.
If you want to buy something special, try this Traeger Fin and Feather Rub or Meat Church Seasoning Sampler Pack.
More Tasty Grill + Smoker Recipes
- Smoked mac and cheese
- Smoked cream cheese
- Smoked brisket flat
- 321 ribs
- Beer can chicken on the smoker
- Smoked wings
- Smoked tomahawk steak
- Traeger tri tip
- Smoked turkey breast
- Smoked turkey legs
- Whole smoked turkey
- Smoked Traeger pizza
- Smoked onion rings
- Traeger smoked ham
- Smoked whole chicken
- Smoked jalapeno poppers
- Smoked corn on the cob
- Traeger beef ribs
- Smoked leg of lamb
- Smoked shrimp
- Grilled chicken wings
- Grilled skirt steak
- Flank steak marinade
- Grilled potato wedges
- Smoked pulled pork
- Want more? See my lineup of easy smoker recipes
See my favorite smoker tools and seasonings in my Amazon Storefront.
Meat thermometer recommendations
Every home chef needs a reliable meat thermometer to cook food perfectly.
On Sip Bite Go, you’ll often see me using:
- Meater thermometer – a fancy wireless thermometer that connects to a phone app – gifted to me from a Traeger partnership.
- ThermoPro digital thermometer – which has a wire that connects the thermometer to a display box outside the oven/grill.
It’s like being psychic! The great thing about either of the thermometers above is that I don’t have to take the food out of the oven to know the temperature.
How to use ‘em… What I do is stick the digital thermometer in steak, pork, chicken, whatever… Then put the food in the oven, on the smoker, or grill.
While the meat cooks, it reads the temperature so I know exactly what temp meat is as it’s cooking. Without having to take it out and check. It’s really difficult to overcook food when you know exactly what temp it is inside!
Are you a foodie, too?
Hey home chefs, hope that answers all your questions about how to make grilled butterfly chicken drumsticks.
Connect…
- Instagram / TikTok / YouTube
- Browse the Sip Bite Go recipe collection
BBQ Grilled Butterflied Chicken Legs / Drumsticks | Sip Bite Go
Ingredients
- 1.5 LB chicken drumsticks aka chicken legs, bone-in with skin on or off (about 8 chicken drums)
- 2 tbsp BBQ rub any chicken bbq seasoning will work, too, as much as you’d like
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp BBQ sauce
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp cilantro fresh chopped (optional, for serving)
Instructions
How to butterfly chicken drumsticks for grilling them
- Prep butterflied chicken legs by patting them dry with a paper towel.
- Butterfly chicken drumsticks. You want to start with the most meaty side of the chicken leg facing up. Slice one cut straight down to the bone to start separating the chicken leg meat from the bone. Push open the meat. Then, go back and make smaller cuts around the bone, to help open up the chicken drumstick meat from the bone. Make sure to keep the bottom half of the meat connected to the bone. To finish butterflying it, flip over the chicken leg and push down to make it about the same thickness.
Detailed recipe steps
- Season butterflied chicken drumsticks before grilling them. Sprinkle seasoning all over the chicken and rub it in with your hands. Drizzle olive oil on top of the butterflied chicken legs and brush to lightly coat them, which will prevent them from sticking to the grill grates as they cook.
- Prep honey BBQ sauce. Mix BBQ sauce in a small bowl with honey. Set aside.
- Preheat gas or charcoal grill to high, about 500 degrees F.
- Place butterflied chicken legs / drumsticks on the gas grill grates (with the meat side facing down), directly over heat (above the flame), with the grill lid closed for 5 minutes.
- Flip butterflied grilled chicken legs and brush honey BBQ sauce on top (the meaty side which should now have beautiful grill marks).
- Close the lid and finish grilling butterflied chicken legs for about 5-10 more minutes, until done.
- Tip if your butterflied chicken legs aren’t cooking evenly – If for some reason the outside of the chicken starts burning but the inside isn’t reaching the done temperature, move the chicken to indirect heat (without flame directly below it) or to a higher grill grate to help it cool lower and slower and remove it from the grill flame where the outside will get scorched. That shouldn’t happen, but, just in case!
- Remove grilled butterflied chicken legs when they reach 165 to 175 degrees F as measured with an internal read thermometer.
- Rest and enjoy with a sprinkle of cilantro on top.
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