Balsamic-Glazed Drumsticks
Chicken drumsticks are the perfect finger food for so many occasions. Serve drumsticks at parties, pack them for lunch, hand them to your kids for a late-afternoon snack or grab a drumstick on your way out the door in the morning. Delicious baked or grilled with only salt and pepper, drumsticks also quickly soak up the flavor in sauces and marinades.
This balsamic glaze (which can do double-duty as a marinade) lightly coats the drumsticks rather than drowning them in thick sauce. As the glaze reduces, first on the stove and then in the oven, the flavor intensifies and becomes surprisingly bold.
Balsamic-glazed drumsticks are tangy, slightly sweet and perfectly salty. The flavor is complex and interesting enough that you could serve these at a dinner party, but your kids are going to love them too.
Eat these drumsticks warm from the oven or eat them cold, right out of the refrigerator. Either way, they’re finger lickin’ good.
Ingredients:
- 6-8 chicken drumsticks
- 3 tablespoons coconut oil (45 mL)
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (120 mL)
- 3 tablespoons tamari (45 mL or 1 1/2 fluid ounce)
- 1/2 to 1 tablespoon honey (15 mL)
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (232 degrees Celsius)
Coat the drumsticks with coconut oil.
Place the drumsticks on a foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 35 minutes or until lightly browned and fairly crisp.
Combine the balsamic vinegar, tamari and honey in a saucepan and bring to boil. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes or until it has reduced to about 1/3 of a cup.
Take the drumsticks out of the oven and pour the glaze on top. Bake for another 5 minutes then take the pan out of the oven and use tongs to roll the drumsticks around in the glaze (it will have thickened a bit more in the oven) and/or use a brush to coat them with the glaze.
Garnish with chopped parsley or cilantro if you like.
Let the drumsticks rest a bit to cool before eating, then dig in.
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Posted By: Worker Bee
I’ve actually done these before and my god no matter how often I eat them, yuuuummy!
Sounds fabulous! I’ll be shopping for drumettes for smaller snacking size and since I’m a wing fanatic.
I am going to try these very soon…they sound wonderful.
Oooh, this looks good. My kids love drumsticks and these look so easy. School lunches, here we come!
This is going to be my dinner tonight.
What’s tamari made from?? Is there anything we can use for substitution?
Tamari is basically gluten-free soy sauce (most soy sauce contains wheat products). If you’re avoiding soy you can use coconut aminos. Not the same taste, but it works pretty well.
Thanks!
fermented soy beans
Just made this tonight. i sub tamari with fish sauce.. and add a tad of dried chili.. it was delicioussss
I don’t know if you’ll see this, or if it’s too late and you already tried it, but coconut aminos may look like soy sauce but is nothing in flavor like soy sauce or tamari. It is flat out gross tasting. I have a once-used bottle in my fridge I keep meaning to toss. Blech!
This really looks tasty. I tried chicken with honey the other day…. it didn’t go well
ooh what a lovely glaze! thanks for the recipe!
Made this with chicken quarters tonight – amazing! Thanks!
Just how many of these could you eat a day and be safe?
Great base glaze- You can also add to it to mix up the flavors, garlic, fresh ginger and even a bit of tomato paste add nice notes to it.
Can’t wait!
Quick Tip: I use a rack in my slow cooker to “bake” my chicken especially in the summer (helps to keep the house cool!). On high it cooks in a few hours.
sg
The PUFAiest part of the PUFAiest meat.
Liquid fructose.
Soy.
What happened to Primal??
Honey doesn’t equal sugar. Do a search above for honey and learn it’s many benefits and when to consume.
The soy is debatable, but I avoid soy. For me, it’s about using balsamic vinegar INSTEAD of soy for the entire marinade.
I only eat soy sauce when I eat sushi. Can’t eat sushi without it. Oh well, I consider sushi one of my ‘junk food’ indulgences and that’s as bad as I ever get.
Just so that we have our eyes wide open, I think it should be mentioned that there are almost 5 teaspoons of sugar to be found in the balsamic vinegar in this recipe. 19 grams of sugar to be exact.
I reckon that’s why balsamic vinegar is my favorite and I use it on my salads all the time.
For the nutritional composition of foods (including balsamic vinegar):
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/spices-and-herbs/9744/2
One should be concerned with their overall intake of PUFA, not necessarily the amount you take in at a single meal. Balance, my man; balance.
I don’t think Grok would have thrown away the drumsticks! You could make it without soy, and a tiny amount of honey isn’t much different than having a little fruit. This looks delicious. Thank you!
Christians may ask WWJD (What would Jesus do), but to evaluate dietary debates on the issue of WWGE (What would Grok eat) seems much more precarious.
But don’t follow my idel meanderings on this subject. Instead, refer to Grok’s imaginer, Mark Sisson, who said,
“To be fair, Grok would have devoured nearly anything, including Captain Crunch and cupcakes. Food was hard to come by before the advent of agriculture, let alone grocery stores.”
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-cheese-healthy/#ixzz22fbPk8o2
“idle,” not “idel.”
Sounds great! I bet it will be good with wings too. I will def try these. Thanks for posting.
Was just craving some drumsticks and wondering what the best primal-friendly way to do it would be… PERFECT TIMING. Thank you!
I too am a fanatic. Can’t get enough wings on the grill with cayenne pepper sauce and real butter. Football right around the corner so this will be a different flavor to give out! Thx
is this recipe based on Gordon Ramsay’s recipe?
I have made these baked at 350 for an hour but did not try the Balsamic for them, sounds awesome, will make right away.
I question this recipe too. Balsamic Vinegar riddled with sugar/fructose, honey, and soy hmmmmm!? Looks like a great recipe but not for me if I’m trying to ditcn sugar/fructose, just doesn’t sit well with me, the soy, honey and most definately the balsamic vinegar. Trying hard to limit the amount of fructose in my diet, was disappointed to see this recipe on this site.
Well, nobody’s going to force feed it to you. I appreciate MDA partially because the recipes here have a fuller, richer pallet than many paleo-style sites out there. And I’m an athlete who’s interested in health but not afraid to ingest a little honey or balsamic vinegar. I’m sure I’m not the only one either. so I’m happy to have this. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of recipes that work for you just fine already.
MDA does allow more carbs than I can handle for weight loss too. This looks nice for someone who is in weight maintenance or a high carb burner, but I’m avoiding the sugar in the honey and balsalmic.
Smart critical thinking, Whitney. I like to see more of that around here otherwise it just seems like an echo chamber.
I too was surprised somewhat to see a recipe with balsamic vinegar (amounting to almost 5 teaspoons of sugar for this recipe) in addition to the honey.
Maybe this was meant to be a “cheat day” recipe.
I’m not very concerned about fermented soy products like tamari however, and it even has the added advantage of being wheat-free.
Sorry there’s not an edit function on these posts, so you have to post again to make a correction.
So, I’d like to say:
I’m not very concerned about fermented ORGANIC soy products like tamari however, and it even has the added advantage of being wheat-free.
Geez, does everything HAVE to be a religion?
Spice girl – thanks for the tip about using a slow cooker with a rack.
Do you put some water in the base of the cooker or do you use it dry?
French Margaret,
No, you don’t “need” water in a slow cooker (I always thought you did until a few years ago).
I make fish in it (wrapped in foil) and baked sweet potatoes, meats, etc. It is awesome!
Check out http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ for ideas.
sg
No. No water needed in a slow cooker.
(I posted a link in another comment, which may not get posted), so answering here.
I do a similar maranade with honey, olive oil, lemon juice or apple vinegsr, whole-grain mustard and a bit of salt and garlic to taste. Nice left to sit in in overnight before its cooked.
I’m going to try this tomorrow night!
Good balsamic is on par with good wine in my book. Life’s too short to consider either a cheat food. I’ll use honey with restraint, but balsamic gets used liberally. I guess if there is a concern about the sugar load, some more intense heavy lifting would take care of it.
Excellent recipe idea!
My marinade for chicken – Olive Oil, Apple Cider Vinegar, Garlic and crushed red pepper. Needs to soak for at least 3 hours. Smoked and dusted with cumin/paprika/red pepper spice when turned. Frank’s Hot Sauce as a finisher – mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with pastured butter.
Marinade for ribs – Olive Oil, Red Wine Vinegar, Garlic and crushed red pepper.
Needs to sit and marinate in the refrigerator for at least two days. The vinegar will eat away at the larger portions of fat. I turn the bag about 4 or 5 times during those 48 hours. Grilled over charcoal is best, but I plan on trying to smoke them with some plum wood chips.
Great comments everyone!
My mom and I made this tonight and it was absolutely delicious!! It was the perfect combination of sweet and tangy with the honey and coconut oil. My mom has always used Baby Rays BBQ Sauce and it was just too thick and obviously unprimal.I highly recommend this recipe to anybody who enjoys eating drumsticks!
Sweet Baby Ray’s has crazy sugar content–its first ingredient is corn syrup. I’ve gotten some called “Bone-Suckin’ Sauce;” it seems to be on par with Mark’s recipe for primal bbq sauce and is pretty tasty.
Only problem? I did not make enough…love the “syrup” just by itself…will be saving that to put on other stuff….
We made these tonight and I asked my husband if he had brined the chicken (which he had not)
Chicken was SO moist and tender (we did buy pasture raised) and our girls loved the flavor too.
Great recipe!
I can already see this becoming as one of my go-to no fuss dish for my family. I love the idea of baking chicken and experimenting with various glazes. Is the tamari readily available in most grocery stores?
What if I don’t have coconut oil?? I live in Korea, and I haven’t found coconut oil but I have all the other ingredients…could I substitute butter or olive oil for the coconut oil??
Maybe you could, but coconut oil is really ideal for this kind of cooking. It has a higher smoke point and has a very healthy profile.
Also, I live in Korea too. But I get my extra virgin coconut oil in a big 54 oz. economy size from a company called iHerb.com that has truly unbelievably cheap shipping to Korea (and fast like 5 days with order tracking). Also, on your first order, you can get a $5 discount if you use this code: COC920
Cheers.