Baked chicken in BBQ sauce

[Nyleve]

For next week's meal at the soup kitchen where I volunteer, we've managed to get a whole pile of chicken leg/thigh quarters for not very much money. I'm thinking of doing them oven baked with barbecue sauce. (Probably about 35 lbs of them, so no fiddly prep). From the recipes I've dug up, there are two ways to approach this: bake first, drain fat, add BBQ sauce and continue baking OR just bake from scratch in sauce. I'd appreciate some help on this - which do you think would work better? I'll be doing them in large foil pans a day ahead. I'm thinking that it might be best to bake them lightly seasoned but without sauce until cooked through and refrigerate overnight. Add barbecue sauce and reheat on site before serving. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Nyleve]

I meant to post but forgot. Lunch was a huge hit. We had almost 100 chicken leg quarters which I seasoned (salt, pepper, garlic powder), laid out on baking sheets and roasted until cooked through with crispy browned skin. Had to do this in batches but it all worked out fine. Refrigerated the cooked chicken in foil pans overnight. The next day I tossed the chicken pieces in barbecue sauce and placed them in large baking pans to reheat on site. The sauce caramelized and the chicken was much tastier than it had any right to be, considering what went into making the dish. We served it with scalloped potatoes and salad - everyone loved it. Thanks for the help, folks.

[Will Owen]

I've done chicken like that for company, too, and you don't have to be a soup kitchen client to love it! I love the scalloped-potato suggestion; I usually do potato salad, but scalloped would be great and a bit easier. Thank YOU!

[Nyleve]

Ok great - two votes for what I thought would be best anyway. Just needed some confirmation. Will let you know how it turns out.

[cheesecake17]

When you bake the chicken the first time, make sure the pans aren't too crowded.

Also my oven takes longer to bake anything in a foil pan... So keep an eye on the chicken

[Nyleve]

Actually I may spread the chicken out on my biggest flat pans so that there's room for air to circulate. Good reminder - thanks. I'll bake them with sauce in the foil, though.

[cheesecake17]

If you have cooling racks, use them to lift the chicken off the flat pans. All the grease ends up on the pan.

[chowser]

That's what I was thinking, too, or if racks aren't big enough on top of some wadded up aluminum foil.

[Nyleve]

Good plan. Will work something out.

[ChiliDude]

Bake first, drain fat, add BBQ sauce a few minutes before the meat is done and continue baking. Adding the BBQ sauce at the beginning will cause all the liquid in the sauce to evaporate, and may produce dry meat.

[TorontoJo]

I would go with your option 2. Baking them in the sauce will result in a lot of very runny/diluted BBQ sauce and you'll lose the effect of the sauce completely. I'd go with salt and pepper, bake, drain, store, then reheat with sauce -- just like you've described.