The Sweet Pantry Staple You Should Use As A Chicken Glaze

In a jam and realizing you don't have the ingredients for your favorite chicken glaze? Or trying to switch up the usual weekly chicken dinner for something out-of-the-box? Try using jam instead. 

While the idea of using a breakfast condiment as a glaze for proteins might seem a little out there, trust us, it'll taste great. So great, you might add this preparation to your monthly dinner rotation. Food Republic reached out to McCormick Executive Chef — yes, that McCormick — Hadar Cohen-Aviram for all the tips and tricks when it comes to utilizing jam as a glaze.

Cohen-Aviram explained the scientific reason you should reach for the jam jar: "[I]f you think about how diffusion happens in water content, it draws out some of the moisture in the chicken, and it makes for a crispier exterior ... the concentrated sugar. It's like salt ... when you have a bigger concentration of those minerals someplace, they will draw more water towards that." 

The use of jam seems to be an easier, maybe even quicker, method for getting the crave-worthy crispy skin that brines are known for providing. It's not just the skin that will benefit from this switch, but the mouthfeel too. "[Jam] has some acidity in it too sometimes, and so from a mouthfeel perspective, it will give you some more flavor in a better way," she went on to say. 

Don't get us — or her — wrong though, you still need to season your protein prior to adding on the glaze.

When it comes to protein and flavor combinations with jam glaze, Executive Chef Hadar Cohen-Aviram endorses using "denser meats that have more flavor to them. Beef will work well. Dark chicken will work really well. White meat ... that really likes fruity flavors," she said. She also recommends adding seasonings to the jam itself in addition to using them on your chosen protein. 

Pair your jam with McCormick's 2025 Flavor of the Year Aji Amarillo Seasoning, which contains heat from Peruvian yellow peppers and natural, slightly fruity notes. Sweet and spicy are one of the flavor matches made in heaven. If New Mexicans can put green chiles on their vanilla ice cream, you shouldn't hold back from combining the Aji Amarillo flavors with a sweeter peach or pineapple jam.

Other fabulous combinations Cohen-Aviram mentioned include adding some turmeric and paprika to an apricot jam. Don't forget to taste along the way to make sure you like the direction the flavor profile is going and mitigate wasting ingredients from either over-salting or adding one too many dashes of Worcestershire sauce — we asked; this is chef-sanctioned. 

To add an extra bougie flavor profile to your chicken dish, try using the jam Ina Garten swears by for her famous PB&Js. This would make for a little fruitier and sweeter combo, being berry-based. With jams featuring fruits like blueberries, Cohen-Aviram said they're trickier to pair due to lower acidity, but a splash of vanilla would "create something a little interesting."