BBQ Chicken and Apple Bread Pudding — The Grill That Held Me Together

Aiden turned five. The party was on the balcony and in the apartment — fifteen people, socially distanced as much as fifteen people in a small apartment can be, which is not very much. I grilled ribs and chicken and burgers. Mama brought the cake: chocolate with blue frosting, a basketball on top (Mama's default design for Aiden, who has not asked for anything else since he was three). Jerome brought Miss Doris's pound cake. Mr. Peterson brought hot sauce. The neighborhood kids came, and the basketball league kids came, and Aiden stood in the middle of it all with a foam basketball in one hand and a rib in the other, and he looked at me and said, "This is the best party ever, Daddy." Brianna came. She sat on the couch and held Zaria and watched Aiden open presents and she looked at me across the room — across the apartment that used to be ours, across the kitchen that I have claimed as mine, across the distance that is now permanent — and she smiled. Not the sad smile. Not the duty smile. A real smile. She said, later, at the door, while the kids were saying goodbye: "You're a good father, DeShawn. The best I've ever seen." I said, "I learned from the best." She knew I meant my father. She smiled again. She took the kids. She left. I cleaned the apartment alone. I washed the dishes. I wiped the counters. I put away the leftover ribs and chicken and cake. I swept the balcony where the grill and the smoker sat cooling, the ash settling, the evening arriving. I stood on the four-foot balcony where I learned to grill four years ago, where I singed my eyebrows with lighter fluid, where I cooked my first hot dog and my first burger and my first rib, and I looked at the Detroit sky and I thought: I am thirty years old. I am alone. I am cooking. I am coaching. I am fathering. I am surviving. I am the man I did not plan to be, and I am better than the man I planned to be, and the food is how I know. Year four is over. The hardest year. The year the marriage ended and the pandemic began and the taste was lost and returned. The year the food became not just a hobby or a passion but a lifeline — the thing that caught me when everything else let go. The grill stays hot. The man stays standing. And the next year — the year of learning to cook alone, of learning to be alone, of learning that alone is not the same as empty — the next year begins now.

After everyone left and the dishes were done and the balcony grill had gone quiet, I still had chicken — and I had bread going stale on the counter, and apples in the bowl that no one had touched, and a kitchen that was mine and only mine now. This BBQ Chicken and Apple Bread Pudding is what I made the next afternoon, when the apartment was still and Aiden’s birthday balloons were starting to sag: it takes the smoke and sweetness of a grill day and pulls it into something warm enough to sit with alone. It’s a leftover recipe and a survival recipe and, on the right day, a celebration recipe all at once.

BBQ Chicken and Apple Bread Pudding

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 cups cooked BBQ chicken, shredded or roughly chopped
• 1 medium apple, peeled, cored, and diced (such as Honeycrisp or Granny Smith)
• 5 cups day-old bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (French bread or sourdough works well)
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 cup BBQ sauce, plus extra for drizzling
• 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon butter, for greasing the baking dish

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Butter a 9x13-inch baking dish generously and set aside.
2. Make the custard. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, BBQ sauce, smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper until fully combined.
3. Combine the filling. Add the bread cubes, shredded BBQ chicken, diced apple, and half the green onions to the custard mixture. Gently fold everything together until the bread is well coated. Let it sit for 5 minutes so the bread absorbs the liquid.
4. Transfer and top. Pour the mixture evenly into the prepared baking dish. Scatter the shredded cheddar over the top and drizzle with an additional 2–3 tablespoons of BBQ sauce.
5. Bake. Bake uncovered for 40–45 minutes, until the top is golden, the cheese is bubbly, and the center is set when you press it lightly.
6. Rest and garnish. Let the bread pudding rest for 5 minutes before serving. Top with the remaining green onions and an extra drizzle of BBQ sauce if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 410 | Protein: 29g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 38g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 720mg