Barbecue chicken without a bottle of barbecue sauce in sight. This single thigh gets a glaze built from three pantry items — Date Bacon Vinegar, a spoonful of tomato sauce, and a teaspoon of brown sugar — whisked together and spooned on before it ever sees the oven.

The Date Bacon Vinegar is doing almost all of the work. Dates bring a deep, molasses-like sweetness that most barbecue sauces have to chase with corn syrup, and the smoked bacon note lands the same place a low-and-slow smoker would. Because the base is a vinegar rather than a sugar syrup, the glaze stays bright instead of turning cloying, and it reduces into a real lacquer under the heat.

Baste at the halfway mark so the sugars have time to set, and serve the thigh with whatever sauce pools in the bottom of the dish. It is a thirty-minute weeknight plate that eats like a Sunday one.