I’m not much of a cook and I like simple food, so I’m always on the lookout for easy recipes. Every time I’ve tried to make chicken breasts, they come out dry. So I was happy then I found this recipe.
I did the brining thing (4 cups of water, 1/4 cup of kosher salt for 30 minutes).
I flattened the chicken breasts with a rolling pin.
I melted some butter in the skillet on medium heat, and put the chicken in for 1 minute, then flipped them over.
I lowered the heat to Low, put a lid on the skillet and set the timer for 10 minutes, by which time the chicken wasn’t even close to cooked (my lid was glass, so I could see through it without lifting it.) The recipe said to take it off the heat for another 10 minutes, but I deviated at this point and left it on at Low.
The chicken still wasn’t anywhere near done. Not even close. I ended up having to cook it for like another 15 minutes before it was done.
So what could I have done wrong? My two completely amateur thoughts for possibility:
The lid for my skillet didn’t have a good enough seal (it wasn’t made for that skillet, but it did seem to fit pretty well.
I set the temperature wrong (I have an electric range, with the settings Low, 1 through 9, and High, so I guessed at a number for Medium (5).
Any thoughts for what else I might have messed up? I feel like a chicken failure.
How exactly are you determining whether the chicken is done? The most accurate ways to use a fast read meat thermometer. But if you’re judging it by feel or something, it’s possible you’re just misjudging when the chicken is done.
What is your complaint - that the chicken took longer to cook than you expected but was good when it finally finished, or that the result was dry, not moist as promised?
If the first, your heat was probably too low.
If the second, you should have just followed the recipe instead of overriding it because your visual inspection told you it wasn’t cooked yet. I’m not sure how you could tell by just looking - chicken will generally turn white on the outside pretty fast, meaning the outside is cooked. The only way you can verify that the inside is cooked through is by using a meat thermometer or by cutting the chicken open to see if there is any pink inside. What were you expecting to see to tell you that the chicken was cooked through?
I determined it wasn’t done because after the 20 minutes specified, the chicken was still raw in spots on the outside. When I cut into it, the middle was still not only not cooked through, but not even warm.
My complaint was that it took way longer to cook than I expected, and also more effort. I was looking for a simple recipe that I wouldn’t have to babysit.
When it was finally done cooking (after the 20 minutes, I cooked it the way I usually do, in chicken broth, for another 15 minutes or so) it was tasty and not at all dry. I think the brining was a success, if nothing else.
Maybe I’ll try brining and cooking it in my Instant Pot again. The Instant Pot method worked before but the chicken (unbrined) was dry.
The only way I can get chicken breast cooked w/o being dry is in the oven in a cooking bag. I suspect the instant pot would work great for the same reasons. I think you’re on the right path. Try the brining and instant pot and report back. I’m trying to decide if i want one of those pots.
This method works for me. I let mine rest under foil as well. The chicken comes out consistently good and not dry. On occasion, a rubbery chicken breast will occur but I think that’s an issue with the raw product and not the cooking method since it happens ~5% of the time.
This right here is so very true. My stove cooks very hot. I can never cook anything short of boiling water on high. It pays to learn your stoves personality.
Sounds like I should try the “brining and Instant Pot” method. I really am a terrible (and underconfident) cook when I don’t have very specific instructions. “Learning my stove’s personality” sounds a bit daunting.
Unless I’m misunderstanding, your chicken was a success, it just took longer to cook than you expected, due no doubt to your stove “medium” being less than medium. Why switch to a instantpot? Just set the stove to 6 or 7 next time. Congratulations on a dish well done!
Nah - it’s something every cook needs to do, and it sounds like you’re already well on your way to doing so - stoves/burners vary far too much to just map their arbitrary 1-10 numeric settings to the broad categories of low-med-high you’ll find in recipes.
With practice your instincts will improve, and you’ll just “know” when things are too cool or too hot for whatever you’re trying to do, and will make the adjustment accordingly.
(Note that electric ranges are slower to respond to inputs than gas ones, which is why most experienced cooks prefer the latter - but it’s no big deal, you just need to keep in mind changes will happen more slowly.)
Hmm, that does look good. I’ll have to try it. I’m assuming it’s okay to do it without all those spices? (Yes, I really am a beginner cook). I prefer them with just salt.
BTW, reading that article made me wonder if there was another reason my method didn’t work–the chicken breasts I had were really big. Maybe the recipe assumed smaller ones.
Sure, their overall size, thickness, etc. will be variables in how long they take to cook - chalk that up as something else you’ve intuited/learned.
(More broadly, don’t expect to not have lots of failures when learning to cook - just like anything else, it’s the only way to learn - I have had PLENTY, and count any meal I can eat in the end as a success!)
Beginning cooks can use spices! Don’t be afraid of them. If your tongue only likes salt, that could be because you are a genuine super-taster, or a picky eater, o a person who is extremely hesitant about new flavors.
For the OP - the heat level at “Low” on your stove is clearly different than what the recipe is expecting. Every stove is different, don’t blame yourself. Our stove is barely any heat up to “4”, then it goes blazing hot. That’s also why most chefs cook on gas, you can visibly see the flame and gauge the heat that way.
I long avoided chicken breast for the same reasons as you, I found them very tough to cook correctly, I had to be watching carefully so as to not over cook, not my cooking style.
Option 1: I switched to boneless skinless chicken thighs because they are far more forgiving and generally cheaper and tastier.
I was discussing this a friend who I consider to be a very accomplished cook, he told me a couple things:
Option 2:
The biggest challenge with any breast is the varying thickness. By the time the thickest part is cooked, the thinner end is rubber. He suggested using meat mallet and hammering the breast to an even thickness about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch. It will then cook evenly and very quickly. Kind of like using the rolling pin, but the mallet also acts as a tenderizer.
Avoid using frozen or “previously frozen” breasts, they’re hardest to cook correctly. The freezing process pulls moisture out of the breast and it can easily end up dry and tough. The margin for error on these is very low. Best use for them is in soups or with sauces.
Based on his tips, I’ve recently gone back to breasts and all the recipes I’ve tried since have come out great. A couple days ago I grilled hammered breasts (sounds like something from Xena Warrior Princess :)) for 10 minutes on “medium” heat and they were perfect.
The recipe on that page is in three different forms: a video, a set of pictures with captions, and a traditional format. They don’t agree with each other. The video says to cook the chicken on both sides at medium before turning the heat to low and covering. The other two say to cook only one side of the chicken at medium. The last version of the recipe doesn’t make sense: it says to cook the chicken at medium heat, then reduce the heat to medium and add the chicken. Huh?
I can think of a few things that might have gone wrong. It’s possible you didn’t pound the chicken thin enough (the thickness has a big effect on how long it takes to cook). The fact that you used a rolling pin suggests that this might have been the problem. You can’t roll out a chicken breast as if it were pie crust; to get it thin, you have to pound it, preferably with something flat.
It’s possible your heat settings didn’t agree with the ones used by whoever created the recipe. High, medium, and low aren’t standardized. Maybe your medium and low settings should have been higher.
It’s possible you browned the chicken only on one side. Two of the three versions of the recipe tell you to do this. I think it’s an editorial error.
It’s possible that the lid for your pan doesn’t form a good seal, so that a lot of heat escapes in the form of steam.
