Cola BBQ Chicken and Noodles
Cola, ketchup, and barbecue sauce boiled down onto shelf-stable chicken. Dutch oven, one pot at a time.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 55 min
- water
- 1500 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Grab and go
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Canned chicken breast | 4 cans, 10 oz each | drained; the shelf-stable stand-in for raw breasts |
|---|---|---|
| Cola | 1 can, 12 oz | not diet, the sugar is the sauce |
| Ketchup | 1 cup | packets work if that is what you have |
| Barbecue sauce | 1 cup | |
| Egg noodles | 1 lb package | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | for the noodle water |
Method
- Set the dutch oven over the coals at roughly 350°F. Frying heat, so most of the coals go underneath.
- Pour in the cola, ketchup, and barbecue sauce. Stir it together and let it come up to a simmer, stirring about every minute so the sugars do not catch on the bottom.
- Once it is bubbling, break the drained chicken into the pot in chunks and stir to coat. Lid on.
- Cook 30 to 45 minutes, stirring every 10. You are reducing the sauce, not cooking the meat. Stop when it coats a spoon.
- In a second pot, boil 1.5 L of salted water and cook the noodles 8 to 10 minutes. Start them when the sauce has about 15 minutes left.
- Drain the noodles. Spoon the chicken and sauce over the top.
This started as a scout dutch oven recipe built on raw chicken breasts, which means a cooler and 45 minutes of worrying about whether the middle is done. Canned chicken removes both problems. It is already cooked and already shelf-stable, so the long cook is doing one job only: boiling the cola, ketchup, and barbecue sauce down into something thick enough to cling.
The cola is not a gimmick. Twelve ounces of sugar syrup plus the acid is what turns two cups of thin sauce into a glaze. Diet cola has no sugar to reduce and will leave you with soup. Stir often — sugar on the bottom of a hot cast iron pot goes from brown to burnt fast, and once it burns the whole pot tastes like it.
Packing
Cans and sauce ride in the food bin. Decant ketchup and barbecue sauce into one squeeze bottle at home if you want to lose a jar. The noodle bag can be split into two quart bags so a half batch is easy.
Variations
- Root beer instead of cola makes the sauce darker and less sharp.
- A pouch of instant rice replaces the noodles and saves you the second pot of water.
- A pinch of chili flakes or a splash of vinegar cuts the sweetness if the sauce lands too candy-like.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/cola_chicken-230.asp