Part 2

Cooking the Perfect Chicken Breast:

A Three Step Process With Chef Caleb.

Today we’re going to walk you through cooking the perfect chicken breast! We consider it a 3-step process; Brining, Searing, and Baking. 

The secret to cooking a juicy chicken breast is to first brine the chicken! 

Here’s how you do it:

Brining Chicken: 

You will need

-1 quart of water

- ⅓ c salt

- ¼ c honey

- 1 quart ice 

(Makes ½ gallon of brine)

You can make your brine either by combining all the ingredients and then bring to a boil to mix, or you can make a cold brine by combining and allowing the mixture to meld on its own in the refrigerator. One thing to note; the salt you use really matters! If you are using coarse salt you will want to make sure you are boiling the mixture so that the salt completely dissolves. If you are not wanting to boil your brine, but instead let it sit in the fridge to mix, using fine ground salt is a must so that it completely dissolves. 

We like to use thick salt, so we boil our brine! After it’s boiled, and all the ingredients are mixed, we now need to cool it down. You can put it in the fridge to cool, but we like to do things a little faster, so we add 1 quart of ice to cool our brine down, and the water content of the ice brings our total liquid volume to the ½ gallon mark. 

You can add whatever flavors you want to your brine, we’re adding Thyme to ours, but you can add your own favorite flavors to yours! 

Now we’re going to add our brine to our chicken. We tend to use thin chicken breasts so we don’t need to brine the chicken for a very long time; 4 hours will do it for thinner cuts of chicken. (If you’re wanting to brine something larger like a Thanksgiving turkey, you’re going to want to brine it for a couple of days for best results.)

After you’ve brined your chicken it is now time to cook it! 

First up is searing the chicken. 

To sear your chicken:

Step 1: Get oil in your pan & get pan hot

Step 2: Salt and pepper Chicken breast on both sides

Step 3: Sear on both sides until you can see white on the sides 

Some tips to keep in mind when searing your chicken breast; if you have a larger cut of chicken breast, butterfly cut it so that it’s thinner and will sear better. For maximum flavor, you want to make sure to sear your chicken breast properly, which means letting it go for a minute! Let it sear on both sides until you see the white on the sides and then you know it’s been seared properly. 

After you are done searing your chicken it is now time for the final step, cooking your chicken!

We’re going to put our chicken in the air fryer, but you can also cook it in your oven at 350F. Whichever method you use, cook your chicken to an internal temperature of 165F, (use a meat thermometer) which guarantees food safety. You do not need to cook your chicken over 165F anything over 165F just makes your chicken dry. 

And that’s it!

After your chicken is cooked you have made the perfect chicken breast by using our 3 step process!