Crockpot Bourbon Chicken - The Recipe Critic (2024)

FAQs

Does the alcohol cook out of bourbon chicken? ›

If you use bourbon in your sauce, some of the alcohol will cook off, and you'll be left with a little bourbon flavor. If you plan to make this dish for children, the residual alcohol content is something to consider. You would need to cook the sauce for at least three hours to remove all traces of alcohol.

Why Is It Called Bourbon Chicken? Bourbon chicken is named after Bourbon Street in New Orleans (that's also why the “Bourbon” in Bourbon chicken” is capitalized). As the story goes, the dish was popularized in a Chinese restaurant that was located on Bourbon Street.

Traditional bourbon chicken has a balance of sweet and savory flavors with a hint of warmth from the ginger and garlic, but it's not typically spicy. However, you can easily increase the heat by adding crushed red pepper flakes to the sauce.

Most alcohol in recipes cooks off

According to Food Network, foods cooked with alcohol (or baked, such as a rum cake) will have less alcohol content at the end of cooking.

The choice is up to you. You may choose to use cooking methods that help to reduce the alcohol content and use less alcohol in a dish to make it safer for your child. Otherwise the safer option is to choose to leave out alcoholic drinks when preparing food for babies and children.

The dish is commonly found at North American restaurants serving Cajun-themed or American Chinese cuisine. The recipe includes soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, and bourbon whiskey in the base, and the chicken is marinated in this sauce.

Mix the sauce ingredients by combining the soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice vinegar, dark brown sugar, chicken stock or water, bourbon, sesame oil and white pepper and set aside. Heat ¼ cup of neutral oil in a wok or large frying pan on high heat until smoking, then add half of the chicken to the pan.

The sauce is a combination of garlic, ginger, chicken stock, bourbon, soy sauce, and brown sugar. Three tablespoons of apple cider vinegar also goes in for added extra tang. At first It will look like A LOT of sauce, but it cooks down and reduces nicely.

The heat will cook off any alcohol content from the bourbon making it safe to eat for children. If you prefer to have a non alcoholic sauce, just use the same ingredients excluding the bourbon itself.

Bourbon chicken is in a category of its own when it comes to cuisine. It borrows from both Chinese food and traditional Cajun fare.

Can I use whiskey instead of bourbon? ›

If you have bourbon — a specific type of American whiskey — at home, you can use that as a substitution. Swapping out whiskey for bourbon in a recipe couldn't be easier. The two can be substituted ounce for ounce, so you don't even need to do any extra converting to use one instead of the other.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), baked or simmered dishes that contain alcohol will retain 40% of the original amount after 15 minutes of cooking, 35% after 30 minutes and 25% after an hour. But there's no point at which all of the alcohol disappears.

This recipe isn't booze forward despite the name. The alcohol in the bourbon completely cooks off as the sauce simmers and it's safe to serve to children, but if you are concerned or don't have bourbon on hand, you can substitute the 1/4 cup of bourbon for 1/4 cup of hoisin sauce.

The answer is, no. Unless you are going in for the longest of long-haul cooks, a smoked brisket or simmering a stew or sauce for hours and hours, alcohol in any dish will not cook out entirely.

Step 1: Make homemade Bourbon BBQ Sauce.

The alcohol will cook down and evaporate making it safe to eat by children.