Whenever we are about to enjoy our favorite chicken meal, there is a question that always comes to our heads: what will we drink? Choosing the best drink to accompany a chicken dish can sometimes be more difficult than we realize, especially when white wine isn’t really doing it for us anymore. That’s why we have gathered a small list of drinks that will complement our chicken, no matter what we are having.
With 4th of July weekend right around the corner, celebrating Independence Day with an outdoor cookout will certainly be in our plans, and spicy dishes will be included in the menu, for sure. If we are having any spicy chicken dishes, like a plate of buffalo wings, we recommend pairing it with an India pale ale beer, as their hoppy flavor and their floral bitterness will complement and soothe the heat of spicy chicken.
If we are having seared, grilled, and salty chicken, resembling the taste of Japanese yakitori, there is no better match than drinking a bit of sake. When we have grilled chicken, our palate is already experiencing many different flavors and textures, so drinking sake will help us cleanse our palate and prepare it for taking the next bite. There are different types of sake, but we recommend going for a junmai or honjozo type to pair your chicken with.
As we mentioned above, pairing chicken with white wine is such a common combination that it might be easy to get bored eventually, not because it is wrong, but because we might not know of other wines to pair chicken with. Therefore, if we are having barbecued, stuffed, or roasted chicken, Syrah’s and other full-bodied red wines with earthy flavors are an interesting alternative, as their acidity will cut through the richness of the dish.
An unlikely and even surprising drink that works wonders with tender, salty recipes of smoked chicken is whiskey and other brown spirits. These type of chicken recipes are great to bring out the vanilla, sweet fruit, and smoky flavor of Scotch whiskey, so we should definitely give it a try when having smoked chicken dishes.
Regardless of the drink you choose to complement your chicken meals with, just remember that there isn’t a right or wrong way to accompany our meals, and the best drink will be the one that makes us enjoy chicken more. After all, you can always try different drink-and-recipe combinations until you find the one that works best for you.