How long does it take to smoke chicken breast at 250 degrees?

Yep.  Another basic chicken recipe.  But I’m totally amazed at how nobody cooks Bone in Chicken Breasts!  Do you even know how good they are?

My gosh, even if you did absolutely nothing to them, they’d be the best chicken breasts you’ve ever cooked.  So why do you keep buying boneless/skinless?

I’m going to ask you to do something for me:  Try these split breasts at least ONCE.  Just once, and tell me they aren’t significantly better than what you’re used to.  I dare you.

Here are our easy to follow instructions for smoking chicken breasts!

Prepare the Chicken Breasts for the Smoker

We are going to season the chicken with a two step process.

First we are going to brine the bird and then we are going to hit it with our poultry dry rub.

Brine the Breasts

Start by preparing a brine.  You can use a basic brown sugar brine but this chicken brine has a lot more flavor.

The Chicken Brine

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup apple juice
• 1/2 cup Italian dressing
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 tbls black pepper

Place the chicken breasts into a one gallon Ziploc bag, cover with the brine and refrigerate for at least one and up to four hours.

Remove the breasts from the brine and pat dry with paper towels.

If you are looking for a quick weeknight meal and do not have time to brine then you can speed things up and inject the breasts instead.  Here is a guide for injecting chicken that has a nice recipe for you to use.

Season the Breasts with a Dry Rub

Prepare the following chicken dry rub:

• 2 T Sea Salt
• 1.5 T Granulated Garlic
• 1 T Granulated Onion
• 1 tsp Ground Thyme
• 1.5 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp Black Pepper
• 1/2 tsp Dry Mustard

 Season the chicken liberally with the rub.  Make sure you lift up the skin and sprinkle some of the rub directly onto the meat.

Allow the chicken to rest for about 20 minutes so the rub has time to work itself into the chicken

Smoke the Chicken Breasts at 250F

The easiest way to cook this split chicken breast is on a Pit Boss, Traeger or other style pellet grill.  You can also use a Masterbuilt electric smoker or a simple Weber charcoal grill using indirect low heat.

Set your smoker to 250F using a mild wood like apple for smoke.  Do not use the SuperSmoke setting on your Traeger or “Smoke Mode” on your Pit Boss as chicken can easily be overpowered by smoke flavor.

Place the breasts on the smoker skin side up.  There is a lot of heat that radiates off of the grease tray on Traeger and Pit Boss grills so you want the bone side of the breasts to protect the meat.  Keep the breasts skin side up through the entire cook but rotate them around every 15 minutes or so if your pellet grill has hot spots.

This is a quick smoker recipe as it only takes about 90 minutes to smoke bone in chicken breasts at 250F.  Make sure to cook them to an internal temp of 165 – not a degree more and use a digital thermometer to be sure.

That’s critically important.  If you do that, you’ll love these.

Serving the Smoked Chicken Breasts

This chicken is amazing when served up with Cole slaw, baked beans or, if you want to have a massive meal, these stuffed zucchini boats!

The best part about these MIGHT be using them for leftovers.  Because they are on the bone and have their skin on, the meat stays much juicier for all your favorite leftover chicken recipes.  I always cook at least one extra just for that purpose.

So try them soon, okay?  And please, leave me a comment here or on Facebook and admit publicly they were the best you’ve ever cooked.  It feels good to tell the truth.

If you are looking for more ideas then check out these recipes for Grilled Boneless Chicken Breasts or Grilled Bone In Chicken Breasts with Rosemary and Lemon.

Smoked Chicken Breasts {Bone In}

Bone in, split chicken breasts are marinated in Italian dressing and smoked at 250F until an internal temperature of 165F is reached.

5 from 2 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 1 hr 30 mins

Total Time 1 hr 35 mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Calories 275 kcal

Ingredients  

• 1 package split chicken breasts - bone in skin on.
• Chicken Brine Recipe Follows
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup apple juice
• 1/2 cup Italian dressing
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 tbls black pepper
• Chicken Dry Rub Recipe Follows
• 2 T Sea Salt
• 1.5 T Granulated Garlic
• 1 T Granulated Onion
• 1 tsp Ground Thyme
• 1.5 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp Black Pepper
• 1/2 tsp Dry Mustard

Instructions 

• Brine the chicken for at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours

• Remove from Brine/Marinade, pat dry, and place on tray.

• Set up your pellet grill for 250F or set your Weber kettle for indirect cooking.

• Sprinkle both sides of chicken with chicken rub and get some rub under the skin as well.

• Smoke at 250 using fruit wood until internal temperature reaches 165 (about 1.5 hours).

Notes

These breasts come out very juicy since they were marinated/brined and the meat is protected by both the skin on one side and the bones on the other.The skin can come out a little rubbery on smoked chicken. One quick fix, especially if you are cooking them with indirect heat on a Weber charcoal grill, it to move the breasts, skin side down, directly over the coals after they have finished smoking to crisp up the skin a little.

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