How to Tenderize Chicken

Chicken is one of the most popular foods in the world, yet it's tricky to get the meat to taste just right. Chicken can easily be tough, dry and chewy, especially if you don't bother tenderizing it before you start the cooking process. However, when you use a tenderizing marinade or mallet and make sure to cook it it at the right temperature, chicken can be amazingly juicy and tender.

Steps

Using a Meat Tenderizer Tool

1. Obtain a meat tenderizing tool. These are generally wooden or metal mallets with a bumpy head that are used to pound meat to make it more tender. You can buy a meat tenderizing tool from any kitchen supply store. If you don't have a tenderizer, you can use a clean hammer in its place, though this will be less effective than a tenderizing tool since it has a smooth head.
   
2. Use it on boneless cuts of chicken. Boneless chicken breasts or thighs can be processed with a meat tenderizing tool. Don't attempt to tenderize bone-in cuts of meat, since you'll shatter the bones. If you have a bone-in cut of meat you want to tenderize in this manner, remove the meat from the bone first.^[1]
   
3. Cover the meat with a piece of plastic wrap. This will prevent small pieces of meat from scattering over your countertop when you pound it.
   
4. Pound the meat. Use the meat tenderizing tool to pound the meat evenly over the entire surface. Keep going back and forth over the meat until it's as thin as you want it to be for the recipe you're using. This is a great method to use before cooking meat using a fast method, such as grilling or frying. Pounding both breaks down fibers in the meat and allows for very fast cooking.
   

Using a Marinade

1. Use a plain yogurt or buttermilk marinade. Yogurt and buttermilk contain enzymes and acids that work together to break down the proteins in chicken meat, causing it to become more tender. That's why so many cooks know that soaking chicken in yogurt or buttermilk overnight before frying chicken results in the very best fried chicken imaginable. The same trick can be used to prepare any type of chicken for any cooking process.^[2]
   
   • If you want to use yogurt, make sure it's plain. Full fat or low-fat yogurt both work fine. The chicken will have a slight yogurt flavor, which pairs well with peppers and other spices.
   • Buttermilk is a little milder and won't affect the flavor of the chicken. If you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can make it. Simply add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to a cup-sized measuring cup. Fill up the rest of the cup with whole or low-fat milk. Let the mixture sit for 5 to 10 minutes, until it curdles. You can use this in place of buttermilk.
2. Steer clear of other types of marinades. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of marinades and brines to choose from, many of which make chicken taste great. However, when it comes to making the chicken more tender, there are certain types of marinades you want to avoid:
   
   • Don't use an acidic marinade, like one with vinegar or lemon juice, if you want the meat to be tender. Acid-based marinades infuse the meat with great flavor, but they can actually cause the meat to get a little tougher.^[3]
   • Avoid enzyme-based marinades that contain pineapple or meat tenderizer. These do the job a little too well, causing chicken meat to become mushy.
3. Marinate the meat for an hour or more. Overnight is best, but marinating the chicken in buttermilk or yogurt for just an hour or so will make a big difference in the texture of the meat. To marinate it, simply place the meat in a container and pour enough plain yogurt or buttermilk to cover it. Close the container and let it sit in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it.
   
   • You can season the marinade with spices and salt to brine the chicken while it's marinating.
   • After the chicken is done marinating, shake or rinse off the excess buttermilk or yogurt before using it in your recipe.
4. Alternatively, use a fruit marinade. If you want the chicken to be as tender as possible, and don't mind if it gets a little mushy, you can take advantage of the enzymes naturally found in certain fruits. Peel and puree a Kiwi fruit, pineapple, or mango and mix with your raw chicken pieces. Keep it covered in the refrigerator for about an hour.
   
   • This works best when you're making a curry. You cannot really detect the fruit in the finished curries, but you may be able to in dishes without a strong-tasting sauce.

Cooking The Chicken

There are many ways to cook chicken, but here are a few examples:

1. Blacken the chicken. Take a pan, put 1 tbsp oil (olive oil adds extra flavour!!) and heat up the oil. Meanwhile, season the chicken using whatever spices you like. Cover

the chicken with the spices, and then place in the pan. Cook until no longer pink on the inside.

1. Oven Baking the Chicken. Season chicken and place in a greased baking pan. Bake 30-40 minutes,or until no longer pink.
2. Grilling the chicken. Transfer the tenderized,seasoned chicken to the gril and cook until done.

Selecting and Cooking the Tenderest Chicken

1. Choose younger chickens. In the US, most chicken sold is young, but getting an old bird isn't an impossibility. Know your source, as older chickens yield tougher, stringier meat. It's difficult to tell how old the chicken was just by looking at the meat, so the best thing to do is buy your chicken from a reliable source.
   
2. Consider the cut of poultry used. Dark meat chicken contains more fat, and therefore can be rendered more moist and tender in dishes that work well with dark meat. Breast meat and other white meat tends to be a little tougher. However, if you use a good buttermilk marinade or a meat tenderizer, it can still turn out quite tender.
   
3. Do not overcook the bird. Overcooking can lead to loss of moisture and proteins tightening up into bubblegum consistency. Experience will help you judge when chicken is done, but shoot for the point when the meat is just opaque in the thickest part of the cut. Test the temperature of the bird using a meat thermometer to determine whether it has reached the correct internal temperature. For most cuts of chicken, this will be .
   
   • Use a probe thermometer when cooking a whole bird, plunged into the deepest part of the breast. Use an instant read for smaller cuts like breasts and thighs.
4. Try a "low and slow" cooking method. Though seemingly contradictory to the "do not overcook" warning, low, slow cooking breaks down proteins, allowing for a more tender experience. This type of cooking also allows time for flavors and juices to penetrate into the meat, giving even more juiciness. It works best with bone-in thighs and other dark meat, or you could roast an entire chicken this way.^[4]
   
5. Allow the meat to rest after cooking. Cover it with heavy-duty aluminum foil and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes. This allows the juices to redistribute in the meat. If you cut it right away, the juices would drain out immediately instead of reabsorbing. This is especially important for whole roasted chicken or roasted chicken parts.
   

Video

Tips

• Commercial meat tenderizers may be tempting, but are unnecessary chemical additives if other steps are followed properly.
• All other things equal, fresh chicken will be more tender and moist than frozen. Freezing breaks down cells in the meat, causing loss of moisture, which can mean a tougher bite later.
• Pounding chicken is often done with a mallet between two sheets of plastic wrap or waxed paper. However, zip top bags (with air pressed out) work best, and any heavy object will do, for example, a rolling pin would work fine.
• The FDA recommends that chicken be cooked to for safety. However, when roasting a whole chicken, remove it from the oven when your properly placed thermometer registers 155 degrees. Allowing the meat to sit under foil after removing will allow "carryover heat" to raise the internal temperature of the bird above the danger zone.

Warnings

• Never eat raw or undercooked chicken.
• Defrost chicken in your refrigerator, not on the counter. If rapid defrost is desired, seal the chicken in a zip-top bag with all of the air squeezed out, and run under cold water in the sink.

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• How to Sift Flour
• How to Purée Carrots
• How to Blanch Chicken

Sources and Citations

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