Smoked Chicken Thighs with Alabama White BBQ Sauce

May in Memphis, and the heat is arriving with the subtlety of a brass band at a funeral — which is to say, not subtle at all but entirely appropriate for the occasion. My route gets harder in the heat. I'm a big man — six-four, two-sixty on a good day, two-seventy on a day when Rosetta's oatmeal campaign fails and I eat biscuits for breakfast — and big men carry heat the way a smoker carries smoke: deep, everywhere, hard to shake. By Wednesday I was soaking through my uniform shirt by noon, and by Thursday I was carrying a frozen water bottle in my mailbag, which is not regulation but is also not something any supervisor has ever questioned because nobody wants to be the person who tells Big E he can't have cold water.

Rosetta and I celebrated our thirty-second wedding anniversary on Saturday. May 5th, 1984, we stood in front of Pastor Williams — the elder one, the father — at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, and I said "I do" to a woman who was smarter than me, tougher than me, and more beautiful than anything I deserved. Three months after my daddy's funeral. Some people said it was too soon. Rosetta said grief doesn't pause for calendars and neither does love, and if anyone had a problem with that, they could discuss it with her directly, and nobody did, because nobody discusses anything with Rosetta directly unless they want to lose.

For the anniversary, I wanted to do something special, which in my vocabulary means food. I made Rosetta's favorite: my smoked chicken thighs with Alabama white BBQ sauce. Now, white BBQ sauce is not a Memphis tradition — it's from northern Alabama, and some Memphis pitmasters would consider it heresy the way a Baptist considers dancing, which is to say with suspicion and a little bit of secret interest. But Rosetta fell in love with white BBQ sauce on a trip to Decatur in 1998, and I learned to make it for her: mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, horseradish, lemon juice, black pepper, and a little bit of cayenne because this is still a Memphis kitchen and we don't make anything without heat.

The chicken thighs I smoked over hickory for about three hours at 250 — bone-in, skin-on, because the bone carries flavor and the skin carries smoke and removing either one is like reading a book with the good chapters torn out. I let the skin get crispy, almost crackling, and served them with the white sauce on the side and a simple coleslaw with vinegar dressing.

We ate on the back porch, just the two of us, and Rosetta said, "Thirty-two years, Earl." I said, "Best decision I ever made." She said, "The only good decision you ever made." I said, "You married me too." She said, "I was young and confused." We laughed the way you laugh at jokes that aren't really jokes, that are really just the truth wearing a smile.

After dinner I drove to Whitehaven to see Mama. It wasn't a planned visit — I just felt like I needed to see her. She was in her chair by the window, watching the parking lot like it was television, and when I walked in she said, "Earl Wayne, you're too big to be sneaking up on people." I sat with her for an hour. She told me about the time Daddy took her dancing at the Elks Lodge in 1962, before I was born, and how he was a terrible dancer but he tried, and trying was enough. I'd never heard that story before. Seventy-eight years of Pearlie Mae, and she still has stories I haven't heard.

Walked home in the dark, through Orange Mound, past the houses I've known my whole life — some of them changed, some of them gone, some of them holding on like me. The streetlights made shadows on the sidewalk that looked like the branches of Mama's old dogwood tree, and for a moment I was ten years old again, walking home from Uncle Clyde's stand with the smell of smoke in my clothes and the whole world still ahead of me. Then my knee reminded me I am fifty-seven, and the moment passed, but the warmth of it stayed.

Walking home that night with my knee aching and my heart full, I knew exactly what I needed to do the next morning—fire up the smoker before sunrise, the way Uncle Clyde used to, and let the whole neighborhood smell what I was working on. There’s something about tending a fire for three hours that gives a man time to sit with a good feeling instead of rushing past it, and I had plenty of good feeling to sit with after hearing Mama talk about Daddy trying to dance. These smoked chicken thighs with Alabama white sauce have been in my rotation for years, but that Saturday they felt less like a recipe and more like a way of saying thank you—to Mama, to Orange Mound, to all of it.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 3 hours | Total Time: 3 hours 20 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

For the Chicken:

6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 4 lbs total)
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon coarse black pepper
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Hickory wood chunks or chips, for smoking

For the Alabama White BBQ Sauce:

1 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

Dry brine the chicken. Pat the chicken thighs completely dry with paper towels. Combine salt, pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, and brown sugar in a small bowl. Rub the mixture all over the thighs, getting under the skin where you can. Place uncovered on a rack in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, or overnight if time allows.
Prepare your smoker. Set up your smoker for indirect heat and bring it to a steady 250°F. Add 2–3 hickory wood chunks to the coals or wood box. You want a clean, thin smoke — not a billowing white cloud.
Smoke the chicken. Arrange the thighs skin-side up on the smoker grate, leaving space between each piece. Smoke at 250°F for 2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours, until the internal temperature at the thickest part (away from the bone) reads 175°F. Resist opening the lid more than necessary.
Crisp the skin. In the last 20 minutes, if your smoker allows, raise the heat to 375–400°F, or transfer the thighs skin-side down to a hot grill grate for 3–4 minutes per side to render and crisp the skin until it tightens and darkens. This step is not optional.
Make the white BBQ sauce. While the chicken smokes, whisk together the mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, horseradish, lemon juice, black pepper, cayenne, salt, sugar, and Worcestershire in a bowl until smooth. Taste and adjust — it should be tangy, creamy, and have a back-end heat. Refrigerate until ready to serve. The sauce improves after 30 minutes of resting.
Rest and serve. Pull the thighs from the smoker and let them rest 10 minutes on a wire rack. Serve with the Alabama white BBQ sauce on the side — not slathered on, on the side, so the smoke and the skin get the respect they earned.

Nutrition (per serving)

Smoked Chicken Thighs with Alabama White BBQ Sauce — The Anniversary Smoke That Earned Thirty-Two More Years