just curious if anyone has any advice on smoking chicken breasts. I used boneless skinless breasts and cook them on indirect heat between 250 and 300 and they came out dry. Funny thing is that I do whole chickens all the time and I come out great.
welcome to the best place on the web to learn about BBQ and a terrific place to make new friends.
You told us what temperature you cooked at, but not what temp you cooked to.
Since you left that out, the quickest advice is to get yourself a digital thermometer. If you have one, what temp did you pull the breasts?
Hello Jim and thanks for your comment. I own and use a thermopen and I cooked all the breasts to 155 to 160°. I always cook chicken breast to these temps with other cooking methods. This was my first time smoking chicken breast though.
I front sear and cook hot. Normally they get some type of marinade and today it was a giner soy salad dressing. I really liked this marinade and will use it again.
Thank you all for the advice. I'm really not a big fan of chicken breast to begin with, normally I cook with dark meat almost all the time. Just trying to incorporate more of the healthy stuff into my diet.
MASTER SHREWS I'll wager that once ya' nail 'em, ya'll think more highly of chicken breasts.
And, talk about th' most incredible variety o' things ya' can make with 'em. YUM!!!
Big dark meat fan, as well, btw!
I rub, inject and do exactly what Nuke em does. They turn out very moist. Chicken breasts, I have found, absorb a lot of smoke. If I use almond wood they can be really smokey. If I use cherry or oak wood the smoke flavor is less prevalent. If smoking you have to decide your fuel and what the people you are serving want. If you want a minimal smoke profile go hot and fast like Jerod Broussard advised.
Hmmm... why? Why would you cook white chicken meat? There's no fat! Fat is flavor.😜 White chicken meat requires lots of spices to have ANY taste! Cornel Sander's 11 secret spices proved you need lots of seasoning to make chicken tasty.
Chicken is like pork... both need lots of spices to not taste like cardboard....😖
Fat is not always flavor. To me, white chicken it's a blank canvas (I believe I read that hear somewhere on ar site) You can make em just about any flavor you want. Hot, sweet, tangy etc. if done correctly, you can get them very juicy. My better half doesn't like white breasts also. Till she tried my last batch I made. The breast came out juicier than the dark meat did. She said she doesn't eat white meat cause, like you, said it comes out to dry. That's the magic of the salt the night before. It "locks" in the liquid of the meats.
My theory on fat. When it melts, it mixes with the other spices then works itself down into the meat thus sliding around the spices into the meat fibers, slipping and sliding along the way adding flavor.
Salt does the same thing. However salt, to me, does one thing that fat can't. It tenderizes as it penetrates. I believe it also enhances the flavors of the spices. Don't get me wrong I also like dark meat and a lot of company's know that a lot of people prefer dark to white. That is why white meat is cheaper by the pound than dark meat.
People are so afraid of being sick if it's not cooked properly that they over cook it and thus turns into a piece of cardboard, which it has such a bad reputaion.
I have been blessed to have the tools(that ar has talked about like the fridge magnet from ar) and the write ups that Meathead has gone in great lengths along with his staff, to write and experiment with, that I have confidence that I can make a meal for the family and friends and know they will walk away not being sick, but rather happy, full and a mouthful of moist flavor.
For that reason I am grateful and give credit to this website.
One thing I've learned is to pick a meat that is hard for you to cook and attack it head on. If you fail, don't give up. Try again. Failure leads to success. That is how I learned to cook white meat...properly.
Here's my white meat chicken recipe. It comes out moist on the inside.
Dijon Chicken breasts...
The sauce:
Melt a cube of butter in a small bowl in the nuker...
Shake in a few squirts of Worchestershire sauce...
Stir in enough Dijon mustard to make it a paste consistency...
The topping:
50% Italian bread crumbs
50% Parmesan cheese, grated.
Chicken breasts:
Dip them in the paste and then dip them in the topping until fully coated.
Cooking...
Either on your grill or in your kitchen oven...
Bake at 350° until they reach 155°/160°, about 30 minutes.
I've made that recipe for at least 20 years and people love it. Personally I prefer bone-in chicken thighs much better. I marinate them in a pretty elaborate sauce overnight and then grill them the next day. I reapply the marinade as a glaze as it bakes on the grill.
The marinade recipe:
* cup hoisin sauce
* 4 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
* 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger grated
* 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
* 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
* 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
* 2 teaspoons sesame oil
* 2 teaspoons white sugar
* 1 1/2 teaspoons hot sauce (I use Tabasco sauce)
* 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Combine hoisin sauce, garlic, soy sauce, ginger, 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, rice vinegar, sherry vinegar, sesame oil, 2 teaspoons sugar, hot sauce, white pepper, and black pepper in a large bowl. Whisk thoroughly.
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Last edited by Breadhead; March 5, 2017, 07:36 AM.
Cooking the whole chicken the breast is protected by skin and surrounding meat - protected from drying out. Brining and wrapping in bacon works as well. But my favorite way is to Sous Vide. Juicy breast every single time. I like mine at 140 f.. Breadhead no amount of secret herbs and spices and coating in flour will make me enjoy a KFC breast...it is sooo dry and horrible..I just cannot eat it...ever...
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I never had much luck with breasts on a grill so I played it safe and SV'd them. That was before I joined AR. Maybe its time to give it another go - armed with extra knowledge... I'd prefer them grilled....
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