If you hate chicken breasts then don’t eat them.
Eating right requires you eat healthy foods and chicken breasts are not the only option. If you hate chix breasts yet force yourself to eat them as part of a diet then you really have no chance of sticking to your diet over the long run. You should look at the things you do like to eat and then make healthy choices from amongst them.
Best advice given so far. Dieting does not work - the American public has proven that over and over and over. If you want to be heathly you’ve got to make lifestyle changes and eating right is a permanent choice you have to make. If you are eating things you don’t like then you will feel like you are on a finite diet and as soon as you reach your goal you’ll go back to eating whatever you like and bounce back to where you started. You’re setting yourself up for failure.
That, and try the pizza in my last post :).
Listen to the good Captain. I bought ribeyes at CostCo the other day. I have Tyson tequila lime chicken wings in the freezer. I ate chicken tacos for dinner last night, and I had luxury scrambled eggs for breakfast* this morning. I don’t force myself to eat stuff I don’t like, and I lose weight. Eat steak strips if you prefer; just don’t eat a pound of it.
*I left off the butter and cream, use 1/3 less fat cream cheese, and substituted egg beaters for half the eggs. 5 WW points vs. 10 but no noticeable reduction in taste.
Though I’m afraid I might be contributing to an attempted hijacking, I agree that most diets fail because the “rules” adopted by the dieter are not sustainable.
About five years ago, I dropped 35 lbs, and I’ve kept it off, without banning anything from my diet. For me, the key was rigorous tracking of calories. It didn’t matter to me whether the calories were from a chicken breast or ice cream or a tomato or a cheeseburger. I just tried to keep calories under a certain level. And I permitted myself to forget about the rules occasionally. I also weighed myself every single day. When my weight went down, I felt motivated to recreate that sense of satisfaction the next day. When my weight went up, I felt guilty and curbed my consumption for the day.
I still follow these routines in a less rigorous way.
We just picked up a George Foreman Rotisserie at a garage sale. I was skeptical at first, but it really does make some great chicken-- the meat stays very juicy and tender due to the cooking method, plus you can’t beat the slightly crunchy and beautifully golden skin. I rotisseried three large split chicken breasts (Bone in, with skin) on my first try and the results were pretty damn good-- I too have been getting tired of the usual dry, flavorless, stringy, grilled chicken myself lately.
I didn’t really have any interesting spices or marinades on hand to do my first run of rotisserie chicken so I melted a tablespoon of Orange Marmalade slightly, added it to some softened butter with a few drops of Cristal hot sauce and slathered it all over my generously salted and peppered chicken breasts. Turned out great, quite tasty.
I love chicken breasts. One of my favourite sources of protein.
Do you like curry? I could live on chicken jalfrezis and biryanis. Virtually fat-free, served with rice.
I haven’t done this in a long, long time, but my favorite method of preparation starts with, as I’ve stated before, brining the breast. I then pound it lightly (as others have suggested) to get it to a relatively even thickness. Liberally sprinkle it with the cajun blackening spice mix of your choice and fry on a blazingly hot iron pan. This will produce a lot of smoke, so you need a decent ventilation system. Otherwise, you can grill outside.
Cook for about 3 minutes a side.
Another one I like involves buying a brick of achiote paste (if you have a Hispanic population in your area, your local grocery store should stock it). Combine half a brick (50g, about 1.5 oz) with enough freshly squeezed lime juice to make a soupy paste. Marinate the chicken in that, and grill.
My favorite summer dish is gai(kai) pud gaprao–Thai holy basil chicken. Use about 1 1/2 - 2 pounds of ground chicken breast or finely cubed chicken breast. I start by putting oil in a pan or wok, dicing up three shallots (or the equivalent in onions or onions and garlic), and frying the shallots for a minute or two. Add as many chopped up Thai green chiles as you can stand. You can substitute serrano if you’re having difficulty finding the little thai chiles. Add chicken breast and fry. When almost cooked through, add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of fish sauce. Reduce a little bit. Add one big bunch (about a loose cup or two) of Thai holy basil or sweet basil. (If using sweet basil, I also add freshly cracked black pepper into the dish). When the basil has wilted down, your dish is ready to serve. Eat with rice.
I wouldn’t say I’m militant, but we ALWAYS brine turkey. Never brined chicken, haven’t needed to - but then, we don’t cook it to 180, which would dry it out. 160!
Unless there are no healthy choices among the foods you actually like to eat. Then, you’re screwed.
I could have written most of the OP, except I will eat some spicy foods (not curry, curry is unpleasant. I also found chicken thighs to be worse tasting than chicken breasts.). Over time, I did find some marinades to be not-distasteful, oven frying them was ok much of the time, and pounding them flat at least worked out some of the aggression over having to eat chicken breasts in the first place. I used a dumbbell.
Yipes. I realize I just botched my cooking instructions slightly. I normally fry the chicken first (to brown it) and then add the shallots and garlic, not the other way around. Also, I think it’s closer to five shallots and five cloves of garlic that I use. Don’t kiss anyone after eating this dish! 
And I missed that part about temperature. Ginger is right. 180 is much too high for chicken breast. 165-170 is about right. I just cook it until it’s no longer pink inside. I don’t ever trust the suggested temps on a meat thermometer, as they all tend to be 10 to 20 degrees higher than what I would recommend.
edit: Oh, and with the basil chicken, it may be sacrilegious to do so, but you can leave out the peppers if you dislike spicy food that much.
About eating chicken breasts…
You guys seem to miss the point that I am trying to find a way to prepare chicken breasts so that I LIKE them. If I don’t like any of these methods, then I will give them up.
Forcing myself to eat chicken breasts THAT TASTE LIKE CRAP obviously isn’t going to work as a lifelong eating habit. This is why I am trying to learn how to prepare them so that they DON’T TASTE LIKE CRAP.
If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. I don’t need lecturing on what to eat. I am asking how I can make a good, healthy protein item taste better for me.
I am not willing just to give up on chicken, because I already have discovered I don’t like fish/shellfish in any manner and that makes me sad. I wanted to like fish but I have never been able to. I am trying to like chicken breast and it might not work out but I don’t want to give up having not tried.
Most of the suggestions have been good so far - but giving up is not going to cut it.
Oh and by the way - with breading or on pizza doesn’t work for me. That’s why I am asking for marinade. My bad - I should have made that more clear (my title isn’t really about marinade)
When I was doing the “super healthy eating” routine in college, I had a rice cooker. (You can do the equivalent with a pan that has a steaming insert of some sort, but you’ll have to watch it more carefully than I did.) Toss in rice, water, seasonings, then put chicken in the steamer insert with some veggies and seasonings. 15-20 minutes later, you have a nice, moist, well-steamed chicken, yummy rice, and veggies that have partially absorbed some of the chicken flavor and seasonings. The bonus of this routine was that I didn’t have to watch the food for long, and it was pretty cheap.
Well, I tried not to laugh at this, but alas I couldn’t help myself. 
Brining, marinating (esp. with a natural tenderizer like pineapple), pounding, and not cooking too much are all good suggestions.
Here is what I did last night. I bought an organic chicken. I have tried all sorts and shapes, and the organics always come out juicier (and I am not big into organic stuff otherwise). After washing and drying WELL, I just spritzed it with some veg oil, sprinkled with some salt, pepper, and herbs de provance (or any dried herb or spice mix you think you’ll like). I put a thermometer probe in the thick part of the breast trying to find the middle. I popped it in the oven for about 1/2 hour at high temp, about 450F. Then I turned it down to about 350F and set the temp probe for 155F. When it beeps, take it out and let it rest for 15mins and carve/disassemble.
This is also about the cheapest way you can eat chicken since you are not paying someone elso to cut it up for you. It will feed you for days. It is tasty. And you can make stock out of the bones for your gravy the next time you cook a chicken… and the cycle continues. I figure that the chicken costs about 7 bucks, and you can get 4 meals out of it. The rice costs about a quarter a serving, the spices, flour (for the gravy), and salt might cost 50 cents altogether. So I figure I can get 4 meals for just over 2 bucks a piece. Add in any veggies you choose for a rounded out meal.
Interesting, StinkyBurrito. Giant Eagle does offer “natural” chicken cuts - not sure if that means totally organic but more organic than their others - perhaps I will try those too. Thanks!