Who else can’t make chicken to save your life?

Rsanfilippo3 wrote: »

Literally wasted 1 hour of my time and the chicken tastes terrible! Hard, over cooked, tough And I’m on the verge of a breakdown 🙄😒

How did you cook it? Did you follow a recipe or just chuck a raw plain boneless, skinless breast in the oven?
It sounds like it was mainly cooked too long. If you are baking chicken breast maybe start checking for doneness with a meat thermometer about 25 minutes. It should be about 165° F.
Add some liquid to your baking dish and/or cover with foil.

If you are doing boneless, skinless chicken breasts, use a meat mallet to pound them to an even thickness. I don’t use frozen breasts (they are soaked in a saline brine before being frozen usually), but if you do, make sure they are thawed first. You can use a ziplock bag or plastic wrap for pounding them in. Key to not over cooking because it’s equal thickness. Also an instant read thermometer. Bake or sauté with your favorite spices, seasonings, herbs. Letting the cooked breast rest before slicing or eating, helps keep the juices in the cooked meat.

Great ideas!!!!

Cook it low and slow Baby!

Breast - Pound flat and pan fry or you could grill if you like, but a touch of oil is best. Or bake whole breats covered in oven at 300 degrees and that might take an hour or more.

purplefizzy wrote: »

tuddy315 wrote: »

purplefizzy wrote: »

Boneless skinless makes me sorta sad.

I knew someone once who BOILED chicken breasts. That made me shudder.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with this. I simmer chicken breasts on the stove top all the time. Then shred the meat with a fork to use in soups or baked Mexican dishes. It also gives me the chicken stock I need for soups without all the added salt from canned stocks.

Keyword there is ‘simmer’ (vs boil)... immersion techniques are totally temp dependent:)

Quoted for truth.

If you have a Sams membership you can buy like four rotisserie chickens at a time and freeze them. They reheat so good and are only about five dollars a chicken already cooked! I use them for all kinds of things.

I find chicken tenderloins much easier to not overcook than full breasts - some of the chicken breasts at the store are super thick behemoths on one end but then the other end of them is really thin - it is hard not to just murder those trying to get the thick part done. The advice about pounding them out can help with this, but I also often just spend the little bit extra per pound to get chicken tenderloins instead and find they cook faster and don't dry out as easily (also they are more evenly sized so easier to cook).

Other thing I found is that if I spring for a little higher quality chicken breasts (e.g. ones that are "air chilled" etc instead of the ones injected with a ton of saltwater) they tend to also stay moist better and be harder to accidentally overcook/have come out super dry. I don't always upgrade to those - depends on how I'm going to cook it (e.g. I'm not going to pay extra when I'm just making shredded taco meat or slow cooking, but I might if I'm making something nicer like chicken saltimbocca)

I slice mine in half so it's thin, cover with a tablespoon of sandwich spread and sprinkle with garlic salt (sometimes I add a little parmesan too). In to my convection oven while it preheats to 200°c, then another 6 min at 200°c (total time around 15 min). Fully cooked, yet moist and tender, and only around 200 calories. A non-stick baking sheet allows me to get away with not using any oil.

I tend to buy 5-6 birds when they are on sale for $.60/lb, and then spatchcock them (cut out the spine) and cut off the big lumps of fat around the *kitten* end. Fat is delicious, but these are just flaps of skin that won't cook well. I then spice rub them over and under the skin with whatever rub strikes my fancy, though I tend to go with a BBQ rub. If I have the time, I'll dry brine with Serious Eats' dry brine in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, but if you don't they still turn out damn tasty. They go in the electric smoker at 250°F/125°C with apple or cherry wood chips, for about 30 minutes/lb until the breast reads 150. They always come out amazingly juicy and delicious. You can also grill them over indirect heat, or bake in the oven, but the key here is lower and slower.

Made this one last night: baked chicken parmesan
Take 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts and pound them out between a couple sheets of plastic wrap to somewhere between 1/4-1/2" thick (helps them cook more evenly, and faster.
Blot the chicken with paper towels then season with salt and pepper.
Make a mixture of an egg and a tbsp of flour in a shallow dish. In another shallow dish mix 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs, 1.5 oz of grated parmesan cheese, and italian seasonings like oregano and garlic powder.
Dredge each piece of chicken in the egg mixture, then the bread crumb mixture, pressing to get it to stick.
Spray each one with a little cooking spray and set on a baking rack set into a sheet pan.
Bake at 400F until internal temp is at least 165F with a meat thermometer, about 12-15 mins (depending on thickness, may take longer - pounding it out helps it cook fast)

This came out to around 280 calories for 4oz serving. I served with a small portion of angel hair pasta, marinara sauce, and some broccoli with red pepper flakes and garlic for around 500 calories total meal.