The One Thing You Should Be Doing to Achieve Perfect Chicken, According to Ina Garten
When you love cooking chicken as much as Ina Garten, there's only a matter of time before you’re an expert at serving up some of the most flavorful and moist chicken you’ve ever had. With recipes like her Perfect Roast Chicken and the classic Chicken Pot Pie Soup under her home-cook belt, Garten has become a pro in the poultry department to say the least. So as you search for ways to improve your chicken recipes at home, Garten is who you should be seeking out for help, as her tips for making perfect chicken every time are an absolute must try.
In a post shared to her personal Instagram last week, Garten clued her viewers in on her go-to method to avoid serving dry chicken every time. “No one wants to serve dry chicken,” Garten captioned her post, “so these are my tips for flavorful, moist chicken breasts.”
To start, you’ll want to leave the skin on the chicken and cook as per the recipe instructions. However, following Garten's method, you’ll want to remove the chicken from the heat while it is still slightly undercooked, and let it rest outside of the oven where it will continue to cook under a sheet of aluminum foil. “You won’t believe what a difference this makes,” Garten exclaimed in her post.
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Garten goes on to suggest using a meat thermometer and taking the chicken out when its internal temperature reaches 155-160°F. As the chicken rests on the countertop underneath the aluminum foil, it will continue to cook, eventually reaching the safe internal temperature of 165°F. At this point, the chicken will be fully cooked and ready to serve.
As one person pointed out in the comment section of Garten's helpful tutorial, the seemingly backwards method of removing food from direct heat while it is still undercooked is known in the culinary world as “carryover cooking.” By removing food from the oven before it has reached its ideal temperature, you are allowing the food to continue to cook off of the residual heat. This process usually requires the food to stay covered, hence the aluminum foil.
The next time you make your favorite chicken recipe at home, give this super-simple method a try. When the results are reported as being exceptionally flavorful and moist, there’s no reason not to improve upon an already fantastic recipe. For many people, cooking chicken can be either overwhelming or even a chore—but with the help of Ina Garten, it can be nothing but a breeze.
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