Month: October 2022

Go To Chicken Breading Guide — Part II: Breading Chicken

I love breaded chicken. I’m not really sure when that happened. It’s not something we ate a lot of growing up. But for some reason, it’s really grown on me. Now I have to restrain myself to make sure I don’t make it too often!

It’s such a great way to add a little something to your meal. You get a crispy, crunchy, flavorful outside, and a juicy, tender inside. Add a side of fries or mashed potatoes, a salad, and what could be better?

Breading chicken is actually really easy. It involves two simple techniques: dredging and soaking. In Part 1 of this article, I explain what these two techniques are. In Part 2, I give three ways to combine those methods to make delicious chicken breading.

This article is a bit on the long side. But don’t panic! It’s because I go into detail about all the different ways to make chicken breading.

I want you to understand each step. Once you understand why you’re doing something, it’s much easier to remember it, and also a lot easier to modify it to suit your own tastes. And that’s key to cooking up something you love.

If you’re just looking for a recipe, though, try out our oven-fried chicken recipe, or our southern fried chicken recipe.

Dredging — What, Why, and How

What is dredging?

There’s nothing complicated to dredging chicken. Dredging just means dragging the meat through dry ingredients to get a nice, even coat on it. That’s it!

For chicken breading, here are some dry ingredients you can use:

• The simplest one, flour, is the traditional way to make fried chicken.

  • Dredging your chicken in flour gives a nice, smooth coating. You end up with breaded chicken that’s nice and crispy, but not crumbly or grainy.

  • Out of all the coatings, flour takes the longest to get crispy. This makes it the best for frying (other coatings can burn before the chicken is cooked). It also means that oven-frying takes a lot longer.

  • You can use whole wheat flour, too. It won’t change much to the texture, but it has a bit of a different flavor.

• My personal favorite for chicken breading, breadcrumbs. Yum!

  • Breadcrumbs give almost as smooth a coating as flour, but it’s generally a bit thicker and crispier. The crust ends up pretty uniform, since all the breadcrumbs are the same size.

• You can also make a coating out of crushed cornflakes.

  • The best way to crush the cornflakes is to place what you need in a resealable plastic bag and crush them with a rolling pin till they’re as small as you like.

  • This gives your chicken breading a bit more of a textured crunch. Each crushed cornflake will be a slightly different size. Overall, they’ll be bigger than breadcrumbs, so you’ll get a bigger crunch. It also gives a slightly different flavor to the breading.

• Crushed crackers are a lot like crushed cornflakes. But they taste a bit different, generally saltier, and aren’t quite as crunchy.

I also like to season my dry ingredients. The best seasonings to use are dry ones, like cayenne pepper, paprika, granulated garlic, basil, oregano, or even parmesan cheese. Anything that doesn’t alter the texture of the breading too much.

When making breaded chicken, I find that seasoning the breading adds more flavor than seasoning the meat itself. The seasonings in the breading actually come into contact with the heat, and that releases all the wonderful flavors.

Why dredge the chicken?

There are plenty of good reasons to dredge your chicken. It’s not just there to add an extra step to your meal making, I promise!

• The coating will help it brown and crisp evenly, and prevent it from burning.
• It helps prevent the meat from sticking to the pan. Instead of the meat being in direct contact with the hot pan, the chicken breading acts like a shield.
• The coating will keep your chicken moist. This is important, because breaded chicken is usually cooked at fairly high temperatures, and you don’t want it to dry out.
• If you decide to soak your chicken, dredging it in flour beforehand will help the liquid stick to the meat.

How do I dredge chicken?

Dredging chicken is super easy. Here’s how you do it:

1. Prepare your dry ingredients. If you make chicken breading often, you can even prepare a large batch of dry ingredients ahead of time. That way, you don’t have to go through your spice rack every time, and you only need to add the perishables, like parmesan.

2. If you’re on the first coat, pat the chicken dry with paper towels. That way, you get a nice, even coating on your chicken. You don’t want it to end up with big clumps of flour!

3. Dredge the chicken! Here are two good ways to do it:

   • Place the dry ingredients in a bowl. The bowl should be wide enough to fit your biggest piece of chicken. Drag the chicken through it, making sure to coat each side. If you use a deeper bowl, you can plunge the whole piece into your mixture, which tends to give a thicker coating.

   • Place the dry ingredients into a large resealable bag. Put your chicken pieces in one or two at a time (depending on the size), seal the bag, and shake to coat the chicken.

4. If you’re doing a base coat of flour, shake the chicken gently to removing excess flour. And you’re done!

Soaking

This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You dunk your piece of chicken into a liquid and get it nice and coated.

The main reason for soaking chicken is to get a wet layer on the chicken. That way, when you dredge your chicken through some breadcrumbs or flour, you get a thicker chicken breading, which means more crunch!

But you can also soak your chicken for a longer time. Instead of just quickly dipping your chicken in the liquid, you can marinate it a few hours. 2-3 hours is fine if you’re short on time, but generally it’s best to marinate 8 hours or overnight.

One of the great things about marinating is that any seasoning you add to the liquid will have time to flavor your meat. And, unlike the breading, it’s a great time to use fresh herbs and spices: a fresh sprig of rosemary, crushed garlic, a bit of fresh parsley, or anything you like!

There are a few liquids to choose from when breading chicken:

• The egg wash is a popular way to soak chicken. Mix 1 tablespoon of milk or water into 1 slightly beaten egg. This will coat about 2 chicken breasts.

• As an alternative to the egg wash, you can use an egg white wash. Mix 1 tablespoon of milk or water with 2 slightly beaten egg whites.

  • The egg white wash is very similar to the egg wash, but you don’t get all the cholesterol. It’s not quite as easy to work with as the whole egg wash, but it is better for certain diets.

• You can also use buttermilk to soak your chicken.

  • Buttermilk leaves a thick, viscous coating. It also gives a yummy, tangy flavor to the chicken.

  • Buttermilk is great if you want to soak your chicken for a longer time. You get more of that tangy flavor, and the acids in the buttermilk tenderize the chicken.

  • If you use buttermilk, be sure to let the excess buttermilk drip off the chicken after soaking it, but don’t shake the chicken. Just let gravity do its work!

• Plain milk is another option.

  • Milk doesn’t stick to the chicken as much as the other liquids, so you end up with a thin coating. It also doesn’t alter the flavor too much.

  • For a long soak, milk will help tenderize the chicken without altering the flavor.

• Sometimes I’ll use mayonnaise for this step, but usually cut it with milk or water. Mix thoroughly, and stop adding milk when the mixture drips out nicely from a spoon (it shouldn’t be clumped up). If it’s too thick, it won’t coat the chicken evenly.

  • If you like a thick chicken breading, mayonnaise is the way to go. It gives just about the thickest coating of all. You can cut it with more or less milk to get it just the way you want.

  • It also helps keep the chicken moist. But it’s greasy. I only use this with skinless chicken breasts, since they can handle the extra grease.

• I’ve never actually used yogurt myself, but I know some people do. Use plain yogurt, and cut with a bit of milk if you feel it’s too thick.

  • Like mayonnaise, yogurt helps keep the moisture in, but without being quite as greasy. It also lets you get a pretty thick coating on. It’ll also give some flavor to the chicken, since it has a pretty strong flavor itself.

  • If you marinate the chicken for a longer time, the yogurt will tenderize it.

Some people will tell you that using buttermilk is the only way to make breaded chicken, others will say you absolutely have to use an egg wash.

But the truth is, the best way to make chicken breading is whichever way you prefer. So try different ways out until you find something that you love, and that you love to make!

Well that’s it! A bit wordy, but not so hard. The only tough part is deciding what to pick! But to know what you like, you have to try it out.

And now it’s time to put in all together in Part 2!

But what if you’re looking for great results? Well, brining chicken is a good start.

Brining is a cooking technique that can actually make a huge difference in the quality of the meal you end up with. And it’s actually really simple: you just need to soak your chicken in a brine (salted water)! There are ways to dress it up a little, but that’s basically it.

It actually took me a while to start brining chicken. I knew about brining, but I kept telling myself that it probably wouldn’t make that much of a difference, and that it was just too much of a bother.

Boy, was I wrong. Even just trying it out for the first time, the results were amazing. Not only is it surprisingly easy to do, but the chicken I roasted was hands down the best tasting roast chicken I ever made or had.

If you haven’t tried brining chicken yet, read on. It’s absolutely worth a try!

In this article, I’ll tell you all about brining chicken. First, I’ll go over exactly how brining improves your chicken — the reasons why you want to use a chicken brine! Next, I’ll talk about how it works: the science behind the brine. Finally, I’ll go over how to actually do it in a easy to follow guide on brining chicken.

Here we go!

Why Brine Chicken?

First things first: the motivation. There has to be some reason to add an extra step to making dinner, right? Well, there are a few good reasons to brine chicken:

• Brining chicken not only adds moisture to the chicken, making it nice and plump, it also helps prevent it from drying out when you cook it. The result is a delicious, moist and juicy chicken.
• Brining not only affects the texture and juiciness of your chicken, it also affects the taste. A few hours in a brine will let salt penetrate deep into the chicken meat, enhancing its natural flavor.

Of course, there is one disadvantage. All the extra water that ends up in the chicken can make it harder to get a crispy skin. Luckily, that’s easy to fix.

If you’re going for crispy skin, just let the chicken air dry in the refrigerator for an hour or so. I’ll go over that in a bit more detail in the last section of this article, how to brine chicken.

Notes

Now, a word of warning. Personally, I find brining chicken makes a huge difference in the taste. But everyone is different, and not everyone tastes things the same way.

For example, papaya tastes like nothing to me. I’ll be sitting there with my family as they rave about how delicious it is, and I’ll try a piece and… nothing. It’s strange, but there it is.

Most people like the taste of brined chicken, but there’s always a chance that’s it’s just not right for you.

So here’s my advice. Try brining chicken a few times. But if you don’t taste the difference, or don’t care for it, then don’t bother! Cooking is all about enjoying the meal, and that should be your goal.

How Brining Works

Brining is a neat little bit of science at work. In this section, I’ll talk about what goes on when you brine chicken. If you understand what’s going on, it’s easier to modify the technique a little bit to suit your taste, or apply it to a new situation.

There are two major processes at work during brining:

• Diffusion. This is when particles move from a region of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration. For example, when you’re brining chicken, the brine has a lot more salt in it that the chicken. To balance things out, the salt gets absorbed by the chicken — not just on the surface, but all through the meat (although it does take a bit of time).
• Osmosis. This is when water (or another liquid) moves through a membrane from one region that has more water to another region that has less water. When you brine chicken, you’re creating just that situation: the brine has a lot more water than the chicken, so the water moves through the chicken cells, from the brine to the chicken. The result? Moister chicken!

It’s all about keeping things in balance!

On top of diffusion and osmosis, there’s another neat thing that happens when you brine chicken. When the salt gets inside the chicken flesh, it makes some of the proteins molecules unravel. Then, when you cook the meat, the unraveled proteins interact and create a kind of shield that holds the moisture in.

Notes

You can also add some other seasonings to your chicken brine, and they’ll work the same way and diffuse into the chicken.

But salt is the most important ingredient when brining chicken. Not only does it help keep the moisture in the chicken, but salt is special. It doesn’t just add saltiness — it enhances the chicken’s natural flavor.

How To Brine Chicken

Brining chicken is really easy. Here’s what you need:

• One container large enough to hold all your chicken and the brine. It should be made of a non-reactive material like glass or stainless steel.
• Cold water. Depending on the shape of your container, you’ll need more or less water, but you can probably count on using at least half a quart of water (half a liter) per pound of meat.
• Salt. You can use either kosher salt or table salt to brine chicken.

  

  • Kosher salt: use about 1/4 of a cup salt per quart (liter) of water.
  • Table salt: use only 1/8 of a cup per quart (liter) of water — you can fit a lot more table salt than kosher salt into a measuring cup!
  • If you don’t have a whole lot of time, you can add more salt to the chicken brine. It’ll help the brining go faster, but the results won’t be as great: the outer part of the chicken might be too salty.
• Sugar. Sugar is a pretty common ingredient in a chicken brine. It can help moderate how salty the brine tastes, and it also helps the meat caramelize, which will give you a nicely browned chicken.
  • Use at most 1/8 of a cup per quart (liter) of water. You can use less, but any more and it’ll probably be too sweet.
  • If you’re planning on cooking your chicken quickly at high heat, use less (or no) sugar. It tends to make the chicken burn more easily.
  • If you’re planning on roasting the chicken, sugar will make the drippings sweeter, and you’ll end up with a sweeter gravy. It’s up to you whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but you should be aware of it.
• Other seasonings. You can add anything you like to your chicken brine! Garlic cloves, coarsely chopped to release their flavor, sprigs of rosemary, thyme, sage, slices of lemons or oranges, coriander or fennel seeds, bay leaves… the list goes on and on.

  There’s no right amount for these. Just use whatever tastes good to you. But if you add extra seasonings, you’ll probably have to use the boiled brine method, otherwise it won’t flavor the meat much.

Now that you have all your ingredients and equipment for making your chicken brine, it’s time to put it all together. I’ll go over two ways of making the brine: a cold brine and a boiled brine.

Cold Brine

This is the method to use if you’re planning on brining chicken using only cold water, salt, and sugar. Here’s what you do:

1. Mix the water, salt and sugar (optional) until the salt and sugar have dissolved.
2. Add the chicken to the brine so that it’s completely submerged. If you need to, place something heavy over it to keep it from floating to the surface.
3. Soak the chicken in the brine for about an hour per pound of meat. The chicken should soak for at least an hour, but not much more than 12 hours.
   • If you have several smaller pieces of chicken, the weight of each piece determines how long it should soak for. So, a 2lb chicken would soak for 2 hours. 4 2lb chickens would also soak for two hours, but a 4lb chicken should soak for 4 hours.
   • Keep the chicken cold while you brine it! It should be in the fridge or in a cooler, or at the very least in a tub of cold water. You can add ice to the water to make sure it stays cold.
4. Remove the chicken from the brine. Rinse it thoroughly, then pat it dry.
5. (Optional) Let the chicken air dry in the refrigerator, uncovered, for about an hour. This will help the skin get crispy when you cook it.

Boiled Brine

If you’re planning on using extra seasonings in your chicken brine, you’re going to need to boil it. Otherwise, the flavors just won’t penetrate the chicken.

Why? Well, imagine that you’re making tea. If you’re making it with hot water, the tea comes out beautifully. As soon as you add the water, the flavor from the tea leaves goes into the water. If you try making it with cold water, well… not a whole lot happens. You need the heat to leech the flavor out of your seasonings.

So, if you have extra seasonings to add to your chicken brine, here’s how you do it:

1. In a large pot that goes on the stove, mix the water, salt and sugar (optional) until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Add the extra seasonings.
2. Over high heat, bring the brine to a boil. Continue to boil for about a minute. Remove the brine from the heat.
3. Allow the chicken brine to cool completely. Never try to brine chicken in warm water or you will create a bacteria farm that could make you sick. Here are a few ways to cool the brine:
   • Let it cool off to room temperature and then place it in the refrigerator until it’s cold.
   • Add ice cubes to the brine until it’s cold.
   • Instead of boiling the whole amount of water, you can boil only a small amount (maybe a quarter of it), and then add the rest of the cold water after it’s boiled. You still get all the flavor out of your seasonings, but it won’t be as hot.
4. Soak the chicken in the brine for about an hour per pound of meat. The chicken should soak for at least an hour, but not much more than 12 hours.
   • If you have several smaller pieces of chicken, the weight of each piece determines how long it should soak for. So, a 2lb chicken would soak for 2 hours. 4 2lb chickens would also soak for two hours, but a 4lb chicken should soak for 4 hours.
   • Keep the chicken cold while you brine it! It should be in the fridge or in a cooler, or at the very least in a tub of cold water. You can add ice to the water to make sure it stays cold.
5. Remove the chicken from the brine. Rinse it thoroughly, then pat it dry.
6. (Optional) Let the chicken air dry in the refrigerator, uncovered, for about an hour. This will help the skin get crispy when you cook it.

A Few Final Notes

• Once you’re done with the chicken brine, throw it out. Don’t keep it to reuse it for anything. It had raw chicken floating in it and it’s not safe to use.
• Always keep the brine cool when brining chicken. If you can’t keep it in the refrigerator, it should at least be kept cold by adding ice cubes, and possibly keeping it in a cooler.
• The proportions and times I gave should give you good results, but everyone has different tastes. The main point of brining isn’t to make the chicken salty – it’s to enhance the chicken’s flavor. If it tastes too salty, just soak the chicken for less time, or add less salt to the brine.

Well, that’s all about brining chicken. It may seem like a lot, but it’s one of those things that’s much easier to do than to write about! You can make your chicken brine in less time than it took you to read this page.

Enjoy!