Lemon, Garlic & Herb Chicken Fillets

Marinated chicken breast fillets — seared, then finished indirect

Brick BBQ, sear + indirect • Serves 4 • 4-6 fillets

Ingredients

• 4-6 chicken breast fillets, pounded or butterflied to an even thickness
• 60ml olive oil
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced (plus extra lemon to serve)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 10ml dried oregano
• 5ml smoked paprika
• 10ml Dijon mustard
• Salt and black pepper, to taste

Setting Up the Brick BBQ

• Bank the coals into the back 8" as usual.
• Half a chimney of Big K briquettes is enough for this cook.
• Use the half-size grid at 4", over the hot coal half, to sear — full width, even heat, good hard char.
• Use the full-size grid at 10", spanning both zones, to finish — coal side runs medium-direct, front (empty) side runs gentle indirect. This is where the chicken finishes through without burning.
• Sausages, if cooking alongside, go straight onto the full-size grid's coal side.

Method

1. Pound or butterfly the fillets to an even thickness — this is what stops one end drying out while the other's still raw in the middle.
2. Whisk together olive oil, lemon zest and juice, garlic, oregano, smoked paprika, Dijon, salt and pepper. Marinate the fillets at least 2 hours, ideally overnight, in the fridge.
3. Pat the fillets dry before they hit the grill — wet fillets steam instead of searing.
4. Sear on the half-size grid at 4", direct over the coals, 2-3 minutes per side, until charred and coloured.
5. Move to the indirect (front) side of the full-size grid at 10". Finish gently until the internal temp hits 74°C, turning once or twice.
6. Rest 5 minutes, then squeeze over fresh lemon juice before serving.

Cooking Alongside Sausages

Sausages go straight onto the full-size grid's coal side (medium-direct), turning every few minutes for 15-20 minutes until browned all over with no pink and internal temp is up. If they're cooking faster than the chicken or the hot zone gets crowded, shift them to the indirect side to hold.

Scaling Up — 12 to 14 Fillets

On a brick BBQ it is grid space, not cooking time, that sets the limit. Rough capacity on a 22" x 16" build:

• Half grid at 4" (the sear zone): 5 to 6 butterflied fillets per batch — so 12 to 14 fillets means three sear batches, around 18 minutes of searing alone.
• Full grid, front half at 10" (indirect): holds 8 to 9 fillets finishing through.
• Full grid, coal side: about 16 sausages in one layer — and every sausage on it is space the chicken cannot use.

Three changes make the difference at that scale:

• A full chimney of briquettes, not half. You are running the fire for 30 to 40 minutes across multiple batches, and a lidless brick BBQ has no way to stretch what you gave it.
• Light 20 minutes before you want to cook, not five. Coals need to be fully ashed over before anything goes on.
• Part-cook the sausages indoors — 20 to 25 minutes at 180°C, then five minutes on the coal side purely for colour. That hands the whole grill to the chicken.

Sear on the Coals, Finish in the Oven

Searing seared fillets and then finishing them on the indirect side works beautifully for four or six. Past that it starts to fail, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of technique: a lidless brick BBQ's indirect zone has no heat of its own. It only borrows what the coals still have, and by the third batch there is not much left to borrow. Fillets that have been seared but not finished will sit there stubbornly short of temperature while the fire dies under them.

1. Get the coals properly hot — full chimney, banked three to four briquettes deep — and sear only on the half grid at 4", two to three minutes per side, straight through every batch. Searing is quick and it uses the fire at its strongest.
2. As each batch comes off, lay it in a foil tray.
3. Finish the whole lot in the oven at 180°C fan until the internal temperature reads 74°C — about 10 to 15 minutes for butterflied fillets. Rest, then squeeze over the lemon.

Why it works: the fire only has to hold up for the first 15 to 20 minutes, which it reliably will. The oven does the part that needs patience. Same char, same flavour, no standing over dying coals with a tray of half-cooked chicken and a garden full of people waiting.

If you would rather keep it all outdoors, light a second chimney as the first batch goes on and refresh the coal bed before the last one. Fresh briquettes need 15 to 20 minutes to be useful, so they have to be lit before you notice the fire fading — tipping raw coals onto a dying bed makes things worse for a quarter of an hour, not better.

Timings

Work backwards from your serving time using the intervals below.