12 Different Ways To Cook Chicken

Chicken is a healthier white meat to consume than red meats like beef or lamb, considering it has less saturated fat, making it an easy everyday protein source for many people in the U.S. and beyond.

12 Different Ways To Cook Chicken

When faced with what to cook for dinner, chicken provides a solution and myriad additional questions.

12 Different Ways To Cook Chicken

Endlessly alterable, chicken works in pretty much any cuisine, using any cooking method. From curried chicken to fast food classic KFC fried chicken, you could spend a lifetime exploring chicken recipes from every corner of the globe.

12 Different Ways To Cook Chicken

Roasted chicken is one of the ultimate comfort foods, and everyone has their own particular method of preparing it. According to The New York Times, there is no right way to ready your chicken for roasting — sometimes a little salt and a preheated oven is all you need.

Roasted Whole Chicken

If you're looking for melt-in-your-mouth meat, braising is the way to go. First, you'll sear the meat to start bringing out flavors, and then, the meat finishes cooking over low heat in a little broth or wine, like with the French classic coq au vin.

Braised Chicken

Poaching chicken can yield some of the softest, most tender meat you've ever tasted — or it can result in a chewy, dry slab. It's an easy process in theory — boil chicken breasts in a pot of liquid — but it's easy to get it wrong and find yourself chewing each bite for a full five minutes before swallowing.

Poached Chicken

When the water starts boiling, it doesn't take long to cook. Bon Appétit recommends flipping the breasts as soon as the water comes to a boil and then removing the pot from the heat. With the lid on, the chicken will continue to cook.

Poached Chicken

It should only take five to 10 minutes for the meat to reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit. After a quick five-minute rest on the cutting board, you've got yourself a meal.

Poached Chicken

We'd be lying if we said it wasn't our favorite method of cooking — and who wouldn't agree? There's nothing like that hot, crispy crust and the juicy meat within it. It's much easier to buy fried chicken than make it, and chances are, your go-to spot makes it just to your liking, so why ruin a good thing?

Fried Chicken

But if you're interested in testing out your cooking chops or are trying to save a few dollars, making fried chicken at home can be an experience all on its own.

Fried Chicken

According to The Kitchn, an essential step in getting your homemade fried chicken to the next level is dry brining it, which means salting the chicken and leaving it in the fridge for 30 minutes to overnight.

Fried Chicken

One of the best and most popular items to grill is chicken, which can be altered to fit any flavor profile depending on marinade and sauce — grilling gives chicken a tasty, caramelized crust with those charred grill marks emblematic of long summer evenings spent with friends.

Grilled Chicken

Grilled chicken is wonderfully versatile: from Tunisian kebabs to jerk chicken, you can make grilled chicken work with any flavor.

Grilled Chicken

Spatchcocking isn't exactly a cooking method — it describes the process of breaking down a whole chicken in order to shorten the cooking time while retaining the meaty flavor that comes from working with a whole, bone-in chicken.

Spatchcocked Chicken

Similar to braising, this method is a two-step process that gives you all the benefits of both pan frying and baking, resulting in juicy meat with seared, crispy skin. Even though this is a hybrid cooking method, it's one of the easiest recipes to master. All you need is a cast iron pan, a little oil, and a preheated oven.

Pan Fried And Oven Baked Chicken

If your favorite kind of chicken is the kind that comes with a plastic handle, you're speaking our language. Rotisserie chicken, popularized by grocery store delis and plastic totes, is basically another method of roasting chicken.

Rotisserie Chicken

Rotisserie means that the chicken is skewered and rotated over a flame, resulting in evenly cooked meat, no matter which part is your favorite.

Rotisserie Chicken

Sous vide translates to "under vacuum," and this cooking method is one of the trickier ones, though it involves neither space vacuums or vacuum cleaners. The "vide" of sous vide refers to the vacuum-sealed bag in which the meat is cooked.

Sous Vide Chicken

Sous vide is a somewhat complex process of cooking that involves a temperature-controlled pot of water and an airtight container. The meat is cooked inside the bag that is set inside the pot of water, which is kept at a specific temperature under boiling point.

Sous Vide Chicken

Air fryers have gained popularity just in the last few years, as appliance companies made the dreams of home cooks and health fanatics come true by creating a machine that gives you crispy, fried food with no oil required.

Air Fried Chicken

Air fryers work by blowing hot air around food in an enclosed container fast enough and hot enough that it makes the food crisp, as though it just came out of the deep fryer. But instead of oil, all this machine needs to produce that crunchy layer is air (via Taste of Home).

Air Fried Chicken

Beer can chicken seems almost too good to be true — chicken and beer come together on the grill for the ultimate summer cookout experience? Sounds like something out of a movie, really.

Beer Can Chicken

But this cooking method is as simple as it is delicious, so the next time you fire up the grill, arm yourself with a chicken and a can of beer and watch as fantasy becomes reality.

Beer Can Chicken

Smoked chicken is a simple process that makes for a flavorful meal. While many people default to cooking chicken on the grill, using a smoker gives the meat an extra kick that pushes it over the edge of deliciousness.

Smoked Chicken

The trick to smoking, according to Salt Pepper Skillet, is that the meat gets cooked at a low temperature with indirect heat, so the chicken gets nice and tender without becoming chewy or charred.

Smoked Chicken

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