For a moment, pretend you’re not you. Instead, you are the kind of person who is such a beginner at cooking that baked chicken and scrambled eggs are the only things you know how to cook, and “add some salt” hasn’t even occured to you as an option to liven up the chicken.
Now, imagining that you are that person who does not in any way possess your skill at cooking chicken nor your standards in judging the results reread my advice. I believe, and I think you’ll agree, that for various values of not-you, to include the OP, my advice is sound.
Marinate your chicken to add flavor. You can make a marinade out of just about anything, so long as it includes an oil, and an acid. So, be creative! The oil can be as simple as vegetable oil, something with flavor such as garlic-infused olive oil, sesame oil, or whatever floats your boat. The acid could be simple vinegar, something flavored such as apple cider vinegar, lime juice, soy sauce, bourbon, or whatever grabs you. Kick in some other flavor agents such as garlic, ginger, tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, lemon zest, or whatever, and you got yourself a marinade. Mix it well and let the chicken soak (an hour or more is best, most folks say 2 to 6 hours). Plastic bags are great for marinating, because you only need a little marinade to completely cover the chicken.
And seconding Hello Again: making chicken parmesan at home was so easy, and so tasty, that now I feel bad ordering it in a restaurant. There aren’t many things I can cook for my parents, and even fewer that make 'em come back for seconds, but they tore into my chicken parmesan.
Yes, it is. I was speaking to the general audience, who does not only include the OP. Sorry, I am adding too much extraneous information which may not be necessary at this level, but this is the Dope, so I feel anally completist about these sorts of things. But you did give a recipe for chicken parm, which, yes, isn’t difficult, but isn’t beginner chicken, either, so I felt it was an okay point as an aside. And that recipe for parm looks good to me and shouldn’t result in overcooked chicken, anyway. I’ve just heard too many people say “cook it in sauce, it won’t dry out” and I feel compelled to say, that’s not quite true. You’re still prone to getting dry meat with a lot of sauce. Even some restaurants make this error and it drives me up a wall. Anyhow, I’ve said my piece and I think my advice can be taken in its context now.
Not just vinaigrettes, either. Parmesan salad dressing (with or without peppercorn) is great on chicken too.
Besides that my favorite things to do to chicken breast are:
douse both sides of the uncooked chicken breast in teriyaki sauce, and wrap it tightly in foil to keep it from leaking out. Prep time: two minutes. This gives it a milder teriyaki flavor than truly marinading it does because it doesn’t have the time to seep in as deeply.
or liberally sprinkle soul food seasoning on the chicken breast before cooking. I can’t use it myself because of an allergy to one of the ingredients, but a lot of people use cajun seasoning which presumably gives it a similar taste. Prep time: one minute.
Actually, you can combine the two things above for really interesting chicken. We tried this when we had leftover uncooked chicken breast that had been marinaded in teriyaki sauce and decided to see what it’d taste like with soul food seasoning on it too. I thought it was great but YMMV.
So I cooked the chicken last night, first adding salt and pepper. Today I mixed a breast and a half with a frozen potato dish (Green Giant). I can’t say I like it.
Tomorrow will be more chicken breast, but with green beans.
Thanks all who have given recipe ideas. I’d like to try the recipes of others I kinda know (from reading your posts) than to just grab something off the internet.
I think I may do chicken parm. next week. I think it’ll go well with green beens. Or I may try a stir fry with lots of onion and peppers.
The simplest way I pump up baked chicken breast is by putting a little lemon juice in the pan and some fresh ground black pepper… lemon pepper chicken breasts!! They end up so juicy. But remember to let the chicken breast rest before cutting it up. It helps the juices redistribute and keeps them juicy and delicious!
What didn’t you like about it? I gather from your initial post that you thought the plain chicken lacked pizazz - so now that you added seasoning what is it that you don’t like? If it’s too salty you can try again but use a little less seasoning this time. If you think it still lacks a certain amount of heat, maybe you can add tobasco sauce to the chicken. If you’d like it to have some bigger flavor then let us know something you’d like to emulate and we can recommend a marinade. If it was just tough then try pounding it out and brining it. In any case - DON’T GIVE UP! Just let us know and I’m sure you’ll get a million suggestions out of which at least 1 or 2 will be good advice!
There’s a BBQ place in Oneonta, NY named Brooks’ House of BBQ that has the most incredible barbequed chicken in the observable universe. It is literally the best BBQ chicken I have ever tasted. Anyway, my wife’s former employer’s ex-husband’s uncle used to work at the place, and he gave Bruce (the ex-husband) the recipe for the marinade. Here it is:
1 cup of cooking oil
2 cups cider vinegar
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 egg
Beat egg, add oil, beat again, add everything else and stir. Brush on 10 chicken halves and grill.
Try this—you won’t regret it, I promise. It sounds simple, but this chicken recipe is the BOMB.
My wife used to poach chicken breasts in a mixture of water, chicken broth and white wine. Also, she put some fresh dill and the tops of some celery in the pan, along with salt and pepper.
Bring to a boil and turn off the heat, turning the breasts and covering the pan. Allow to sit for twenty minutes or so. The result is very moist and juicy breasts
OK, try to find a copy of Peg Bracken’s I Hate To Cook Book, preferably the Compleat version, because it will be two books for one. Some of the recipes are pretty outdated, but many of them are just as quick and easy and foolproof today as they were all those many years ago.
For instance, sometimes I melt butter (you can use margarine if you’re a heathen) and then coat chicken pieces in the melted butter, and then coat them in seasoned breadcrumbs. For a beginner cook, I advise using poultry seasoning on the bread crumbs, or use the kind that are already seasoned. Throw the pieces into a baking dish, bake at 350 for half an hour or so, and you have the main course.
I also like stirfries. There are several frozen vegetable medleys that are meant for stirfries. Just cut the chicken (and it can be any piece of the bird here) into strips, heat up peanut oil until a drop of water dances around on the oil, and dump in the chicken and veggies. Cook some rice at the same time, and it’s a pretty complete dinner. An almond or fortune cookie is optional.
My daughter loves the chicken and rice recipe that’s often printed on the back of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup cans. Sneer if you want, but it’s comfort food for many people, and it’s something that a beginning cook can make, and it’s hard to mess up.
Huh—so it’s an upper New York thing—I never knew that. It didn’t originate with that particular restaurant. I’ll have to mention that to Bruce if I ever see him again.
Yeah, dude (dudette?) tell us what you didn’t like about the chicken-potato concoction and we’ll have suggestions.
You’ve mentioned peppers and onions a few times, so I’m betting the stir-fry idea will work well for you. You can have it with rice (Asian style) or in a tortilla (chicken fajitas). Slice the chicken into strips, and cook it fast and hot in a lil’ bit of oil - small pieces of chicken cook QUICK! If they’re about an inch cubed, they’ll be cooked through about when the outside starts to brown.
I believe the originator is a professor from Cornell University, hence the name. But, yes, it’s indigenous to that area, so far as I understand.
Anyhow, I made some yesterday on the grill and, man, do I need to put grilled chicken back into the rotation! I tend to do piri-piri or jerk when I’m in the mood for chicken, but Cornell chicken is an awesome recipe for gentler palates. So good, and so long since I’ve had it. Chiavetta’s is the other grilled chicken marinade (from Buffalo) that’s indigenous to the area (and very tasty) but, so far as I know, that recipe is a secret and you need to buy the bottled version.
And while I’ve always looked a little askance at the Alabama white barbecue sauces made with mayonnaise and vinegar (usually used on chicken), it occurred to me that Cornell chicken is the same idea, except you’re making a thin mayo from scratch.
