Campfire BBQ Chicken and Potato Foil Packets

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

Sweet, smoky barbecue chicken steamed and caramelized right in the coals with sliced red potatoes and corn. Everything goes into a double-wrapped foil packet at camp, cooks in about half an hour on a bed of embers, and gets eaten straight out of the foil — no plates, no pot to scrub.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 lb baby red potatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 2 cups frozen or fresh corn kernels
• 1 medium red onion, cut into thin wedges
• 4 tbsp butter, cut into pats

• 3/4 cup barbecue sauce
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Instructions

1. Burn your campfire down to a bed of glowing coals with no tall flames, or preheat a portable stove griddle to medium — you want steady, moderate heat, not a blaze. Rake the coals into an even layer about 2 inches deep and set a grill grate 4 to 5 inches above them if you have one.
2. Tear eight 18-inch sheets of heavy-duty foil and stack them into four doubled sheets. In a large bowl or straight in a big zip-top bag, toss the chicken, potato slices, corn and red onion with the barbecue sauce, brown sugar, smoked paprika, salt and pepper until everything is evenly coated.
3. Pile a quarter of the mixture onto the center of each doubled foil sheet, keeping the potato slices spread out rather than stacked so they cook through. Top each with a pat of butter, bring the long edges of the foil up over the filling and fold them down twice to seal, then fold the two ends up twice to make a sealed but slightly puffy packet.
4. Set the packets directly on the coals (or on the grate over them) and cook 25 to 30 minutes, using tongs to flip each packet once at the halfway mark. If the fire is very hot, move the packets to the cooler edge of the coal bed after flipping so the sauce caramelizes instead of scorching.
5. Pull a packet off with tongs and open one end carefully away from your face — the steam is hot. The potatoes should be tender when pierced with a knife and the chicken opaque all the way through with no pink; if not, reseal and return to the coals for 5 more minutes. Let the packets sit 3 minutes, then eat straight from the foil.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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