Chicken breast pieces - What do I need to do differently next time?

[Anonymous]

I take a chicken breast, cut it into bite sized pieces, season, and then want to cook it in a pan on the stove. I do this, and it comes out dry. What is going wrong? What do I need to differently? Do I need to cover the pan? Something else? I want it to come out moist, not dry.

[Anonymous]

I did this tonight and it wasn’t dry. Did you cook it too long? It just takes a few min.

[Anonymous]

You're probably overcooking it. Cook just until it's not pink on the inside, or use a meat thermometer if you have one.

If you're willing to use thighs instead of breast meat, it's more forgiving.

[Anonymous]

Buy chicken thighs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're probably overcooking it. Cook just until it's not pink on the inside, or use a meat thermometer if you have one.

If you're willing to use thighs instead of breast meat, it's more forgiving.

I did only cook until it’s not pink inside! I had to cut the thickest pieces in half and then keep cooking them because they were pink. But everything came out dry. We don’t want thighs.

[Anonymous]

Medium high heat for 5 min max. If you’re following the 180 deg guidance that’s too longs If you’re not overcooking it might be the breasts themselves. I will only cook with the bell Evans (also store brand labeled at wegmans and Whole Foods) organic ones. The rest of the chicken breasts in the dmv are trash imo.

[Anonymous]

Chicken breasts are always dry to me.

Maybe try a brine?

[Anonymous]

Are you using oil?

[Anonymous]

Many of the big chicken breasts come from chickens with a condition called woody breast disease which makes the meat well, woody. It is dry and the texture is off. That could be the problem. The other option is that you overcooked them. It’s easy to do with small pieces at high heat.

Instead of chunks you could try thin slices. Slice partially defrosted breasts thinly and then stir fry. The way they are cut makes them less woody.

[Anonymous]

1/4 tsp baking soda massaged in before cooking is a great way to make the chicken juicier.

[Anonymous]

Chicken breasts are woody now. Hard to find good ones.

[Anonymous]

If you had larger pieces that you needed to cut in half, maybe try to make the pieces more uniformly smaller so they aren’t getting done at different times.

[Anonymous]

Cook whole, use a meat thermometer, and cut after cooking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicken breasts are woody now. Hard to find good ones.

+1 good chicken is almost impossible to find since the bird flu came around. I don’t know what they’re doing to those poor chickens, but it doesn’t make for good eating.

[Anonymous]

I’ve been poaching mine lately and they don’t get dry. It depends what you’re using them for though…