Inspired by my mini e-cookbook, “Finger Lickin’ Chicken,” let’s talk turkey about chicken. Specifically, let’s talk chicken breasts, which are waaaaay more popular than all other chicken parts combined.
(This USDA report says we choose white meat chicken over dark more than 80% of the time. I blame the fat-free 90s, which put boneless skinless chicken breasts on every table multiple times a week, pushing off juicier, more flavorful chicken choices. But if I could get you to have a thigh or two every once in a while, I’m sure you’d enjoy it. Maybe my recipe for Korean Barbecued Chicken Thighs or Jambalaya Chicken in a Skillet, both available in “Finger Lickin Chicken” on Amazon and iTunes for a mere $1.99, might entice you?)
But I digress. The thing about light meat chicken, the thing that makes it so popular, is that it’s low in fat. But that also means a) it can easily get dry and tough, and b) it can be, well, flavorless.
So what to do? A few tips.
1. Cook it right.
That lack of fat means a chicken breast can go from perfectly cooked to dry and tough very quickly. And that means it’s best suited for quick cooking methods, like grilling, pan-searing, and poaching.
2. Try brining.
Wet brining with a salt solution or dry brining with a salt rub will combat both dryness and lack of flavor. Either method will help get salt deep into the meat, enhancing its flavor and helping it hold more liquid. The result—juicier, tastier chicken.
Here’s a post with more about brining—what it is, what it does, and why it makes a difference.
3. Brown it.
Browning adds roasty, toasty, caramelized notes—and crisp textures—to your chicken, but it needs high heat to happen. For example, a hot oven. Browning can also happen via searing in a hot skillet and by grilling, where you’ll get charring along with browning, adding even more flavor.
This recipe for Sauteed Chicken with Parsnip, Apple, and Sherry Pan Sauce, for example, features pan-browning.
4. Get saucy.
Add flavor to your chicken after its cooked by adding sauce. But I don’t mean gobs of thick gravy that’ll obscure. I mean a tablespoon or two of something flavorful and wet that’ll enhance.
For example, a simple pan sauce or dressing, a dab of pesto, or a flavored butter, as in this Grilled Chicken with Sundried Tomato Butter.
Putting it all together
Classic Cobb Salad, pictured in this post, employs all of these ideas! The chicken is dry-brined before cooking. It’s pan-seared, a quick cooking method that adds roasty, toasty browning. And it’s drizzled with a sauce—a tangy, creamy vinaigrette—helping to give the chicken more flavor. Of course, it also has bacon, blue cheese, and avocado, and those almost never hurt in any recipe.
There are 6 more tips for making all your chicken delicious in “Finger Lickin’ Chicken,” plus 10 ways to dress up a grilled chicken breast and 10 things to do with rotisserie chicken. Check it out, won’t you?
Meanwhile, may all your dishes—chicken and otherwise—be finger lickin’.
Recipes featuring finger lickin’ chicken breasts:
Classic Cobb Salad
Spinach Salad with Chicken, Strawberries, Blue Cheese, and Almonds
Orange Chicken Stir-Fry with Rice Noodles
Cashew Chicken Stir-Fry
Chicken Paillards with Asparagus, Lemon, and Garlic
Chicken Saltimbocca
Chicken with Lemon-Lime, Corn, and Jalapeno Relish
Grilled Chicken with Marinated Peppers
Grilled Chicken with Sun-dried Tomato, Blue Cheese, and Rosemary Butter
