So many of us rely on chicken week after week: It's leaner than beef, it's neutral enough to flavor any way we'd like, and it's easy to cook...relatively. When it comes to the bird, we can make mistakes. Here's what you need to know before you start cooking.
1. Don't start with sh*tty chicken
Yeah yeah, you hear it's important to buy organic yada yada, but with chicken, better quality does mean better flavor. "The paradigm would be organic, free-range, local—you're hitting all the bases and starting with something really good," says Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and author of the new cookbook Kitchen Matrix. "Maybe your chicken is dry and tasteless because you bought a sh*tty chicken. There's a reason why good restaurants typically serve really good chicken—they're starting with better meat."
2. Cook chicken by temperature, not time
It's always a bummer when you slice into your piece of chicken and wonder if it's a little too pink to eat. An equally annoying bummer: When you return it to the heat and then overcook it. "Pulling the chicken from the heat when a meat thermometer reaches 165 degrees F in the thickest part will help you perfectly cook chicken every time," says Danielle Walker of Against All Grain, "and make sure you never dry it out."
3. Skip frozen chicken
Sure, you can save a couple bucks by getting a family-size package of cuts from the freezer aisle—and never fret over expiration dates—but as meat thaws it leaches moisture, resulting in tougher meat once cooked.
4. A crowded pan is not your friend
Whether you're cooking vegetables, steak, or chicken, putting too much food in a skillet at once prevents a proper sear. "The moisture releases but doesn't evaporate soon enough," Bittman says, "so you're steaming not sautéing." (Nothin' like soggy chicken breast for dinner.)
5. There's a whole world beyond boneless, skinless breasts
"Try bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces, which are not only more affordable," Walker says, "but also add a rich, meaty flavor and juiciness to the finished dish that boneless, skinless chicken could never achieve."
6. Minimize the flip
The biggest prob with breasts is over-cooking them, but don't let that fear get in the way of you letting them, well, cook. "You only should turn chicken once or twice so that it can brown," Bittman recommends. "Don't fuss with it; otherwise, it won't properly sear."
7. Skip olive oil
You want to cook chicken over a heat high enough to sear it, and you don't want to heat olive oil too high. Why? All oils have a smoke point—the temperature at which an oil can reach before it smokes and burns—and olive oil's is pretty low. To get the sear you need to produce deliciously juicy chicken, you're better off using coconut, safflower, or sunflower oil.
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