This Classic Drink Is The Unexpected Ingredient You Need For Flavor-Packed Chicken

Many marinades begin with the classic combo of salt, fat, and acid, but sugary substances like soda can also be used to marinate chicken. Sugar not only makes your meat taste sweet but also helps it brown and even breaks down the proteins to make it more tender. Soda isn't the only sweet drink that can do this, though. Another popular summer beverage, the Arnold Palmer, has both sugar and acid from the lemonade as well as extra tenderizing action from the tannins in the tea. The tea and lemonade flavors may be subtler than soda, but they work well as a marinade for baked, grilled, or pan-fried chicken.

So does chicken soaked in a mixture of tea and lemonade really taste like an Arnold Palmer? The lemon may be a bit stronger than the tea, although both flavors are detectable. If you want more, you can always amp things up (and help reduce food waste) by repurposing the marinade as a meat glaze.

To do this, bring it to a boil for five minutes, then lower the heat and cook it down until it has thickened slightly. Once this is done, the sauce is ready to brush on the chicken as it cooks or pour on once it's done. While it's unsafe to reuse a meat marinade without boiling, this step not only helps to reduce the liquid but, more importantly, also kills bacteria that may remain from its contact with the raw meat.

As an Arnold Palmer is pretty much sweet tea with lemon (lemonade at its simplest being nothing more than lemon juice, water, and sugar), the drink brings other classic Southern dishes to mind. For that reason, a cheesy grits casserole, cornmeal-based spoonbread, and fried green tomatoes could all be well suited for serving with Arnold Palmer chicken, as would barbecue sides like baked beans with bacon, our easy cornbread, and potato salad. For dessert, no-bake banana pudding, Texas-style peach cobbler, and sweet potato pie would all be appropriate.

Another way to showcase your Arnold Palmer chicken would be by highlighting either or both of the flavors in the marinade. To bring out the lemonier side, try creamy lemon pasta or a green salad with lemon-tahini dressing along with desserts like lemon cake, lemon Italian ice, and lemon meringue pie.

Highlighting the tea side isn't quite so simple — sadly, we can't think of too many tea-themed sides, although you could always try cooking rice in tea or go with Chinese-style hard-boiled tea eggs. Dessert options, however, include Earl Grey ice cream, the viral tea cup cake made with real tea, or a vanilla cake frosted with tea-flavored Swiss meringue buttercream. (To add tea without breaking the frosting, steep the tea bags in the egg whites.)