Pulled chicken sandwich with apple slaw and sweet corn

Sometimes good barbecue doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it doesn’t even require you to go outside. I shredded some leftover roasted chicken (it had been marinated in a garlicky gochujang barbecue sauce) and warmed it in some basic hickory barbecue sauce with a little apple juice and a splash of sweet balsamic vinegar and served it on a soft wheat bun with a slice of good ol’ Tillamook cheddar and some sautéed onions. So simple and unassuming.

Okay, the slaw isn’t literally made of apples, it just contains some apples. This is the way my mom always made it (she added raisins, too), and it’s the way I like a basic cabbage slaw. A nice, creamy mayo-vinegar-sugar dressing, shredded cabbage and chopped apples. Yum.

Corn is totally not in season yet, not here anyway. But I can’t get enough of the fresh ears showing up in the store. And lord knows I love a good compound butter, but sometimes a girl only needs a little butter, crunchy salt and pepper on her corn.

Serve with an ice-cold strawberry lemonade (mix fresh strawberry puree with Newman’s Own virgin lemonade).