Smoked Chicken Legs

Last Updated on June 28, 2023 by What’s Smoking

Hot and fast smoked chicken legs are a great meal but can make for a great snack as well. They make for a great “add on” item as I love doing this after finishing up another smoke and serving them along side whatever else it is we are having or saving them for the next day. They are quick and easy, and usually a hit with the crowd, whether its a summer BBQ or a tailgating for game day.

Smoked Chicken Legs Recipe

Whether we are call these chicken legs or drumsticks, this is a very easy recipe. First thing we want to do is pat these dry, especially if they were frozen. We are then going to start off with rubbing the legs down with some olive oil. After having done that we are going to use a rub of your choice, I usually prefer a sweet rub or a poultry specific rub when smoking chicken drumsticks. A Holy Voodoo is great or a Kosmo’s Killer Honey Bee is also very good.

When I smoke legs, there are a couple of ways you can do it but I prefer hanging them on a rack. I use the one from Cave Tools on Amazon, you can look at it here. A great feature to this, with the lower tray you can add some vegetables that get the cooked during the smoke.

You have the dry rub on the legs and in my case, hung on the rack and ready to smoke chicken legs.

How To Smoke Chicken Legs

I like using my Weber Kettle for these smaller and quicker smokes and that is what I use when smoking chicken legs if I do it on their own. If have a larger smoke and using my WSM, this still works and mostly everything translates as far as how long to smoke drumsticks and at what temperature to smoke them. For this smoke, I set the Kettle up with a charcoal basket on either side and got the temperature up to 400°, upwards of 450° is fine as well. As I mentioned at the start we are going to do these hot and fast and get that nice crispy chicken skin everyone is always looking for.

I used a combination of pecan and cherry wood, looking to compliment the rub. You want to keep chicken on until it hits and IT of 165°. It is a little difficult to keep a probe in the legs the entire time so I used my ThermoPro TP03H to spot check. This is a great instant thermometer at a value price. I highly suggest checking it out.

I will usually throw some mushrooms, onions or peppers in the lower tray of the hanger. They made for a nice little compliment to the smoked chicken drumsticks.

When I get the Kettle up to temp, I will put the legs on. Once on, we just need to let them ride as is and no need to do anything fancy. if you are laying them flat on the grate then about half way through you will want to rotate them but other then that we just leave them.

Now I prefer just leaving my wings and legs with the dry rub but if you want to hit these smoked chicken legs up with some BBQ sauce, do that about the 150° IT.

When the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, you can pull them. If you are running at the 400°, you should see that IT get hit after about an 45 minutes to an hour. After having pulled them, go ahead and serve them while hot and enjoy!

Thanks for being here and checking out this Smoked Chicken Legs recipe. I hope you enjoy it! We always appreciate comments, 5 star recipe rating and social media shares. As always, keep that smoke rolling!

Looking for some other chick recipes or other ideas? Take a look at some of these grill and smoker recipes below:

• Smoked Chicken Thighs
• Smoked Chicken Wings
• Smoked Turkey Legs
• Grilled Flank Steak
• Smoked Whiskey Burgers
• Persian Kabobs

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