How to Brine a Chicken
In this cooking video, I show you how to brine a chicken. Why bring a chicken you ask? Well, the best reasons are flavor, and moisture…which, when it comes to chickens, are pretty darn important. While I don’t use the technique every time I roast a whole bird, I do try to do it whenever I have time. Brining is not hard or complicated, and it doesn’t required a lot of “active” time - where you’re cooking, mixing, chopping, but it does require about 5+ hours for the chicken to soak in the brine. So, I’d suggest making the brine early in the day, and just let the chicken sit in the fridge until you’re ready to cook it.
How to Brine a Chicken
- You can use any size chicken you like, I like the fryer chickens, that are about 5 – 8 lbs and come frozen or thawed out
- If you buy it frozen, allow it to thaw
- Make your brine. I happen to have a great flavored chicken brine recipe; you’ll probably need about 2 quarts of liquid
- Remove the thawed out chicken from the bag and clean it; removing the innards
- I like to use a heavy duty, gallon size zip lock bag to brine the chicken, but if you don’t have them, you can use any bowl or pot big enough to hold the chicken and brine
- Place the chicken in the bag, and pour the cool brine over the top
- Seal the bag, and place it in a bowl (just in case the bag happens to have a leak) and then into the fridge for anywhere from 5 – 10 hours
- When you’re ready to cook, remove the chicken from the brine, and pat it dry
- Let it come up to room temp before cooking it; and despite being brined, I still season the outside with salt and pepper
- You can now cook the chicken as normal
Hope you try this technique soon. It really does make the chicken much better, and while it is a bit of work, I think it’s well worth it.
Enjoy!
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