In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto demonstrates how to grill chicken perfectly. Follow Frank's steps to get evenly cooked, juicy chicken at home.
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00:00I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor,
00:02and today I'm gonna show you the best way
00:04to grill chicken at home, Frank style.
00:06We're talking juicy, tender, not overcooked
00:09and stringy chicken breast every single time.
00:12This is Grilled Chicken 101.
00:15Chicken breast is kind of problematic
00:17for most beginning cooks
00:19because it dries out really quickly.
00:22Grilled chicken breast can actually be delicious and juicy.
00:24I know people have had dry, stringy chicken breast.
00:27This is not gonna be that.
00:30The chicken breast has just come out of the fridge.
00:34I like to keep it as cold as possible before I grill.
00:37One of the things I like to do with chicken breast
00:39is pound them out lightly.
00:41I have a mallet.
00:42This side with the spikes is for meat that is tough, right?
00:47Whereas this flat side is for meat that is not tough.
00:50So chicken breast is not tough.
00:52Don't start whacking at your chicken breast
00:53with the tenderizing side.
00:54You're just gonna tear it up and ruin it.
00:56Basically what I wanna try and do with my meat mallet
00:59is even that out.
01:00If you cook this chicken breast without pounding it out,
01:03this little tail end is gonna cook and get dried out,
01:05whereas this one, the fat side, might not be cooked enough.
01:09So a lot of times people who pound meat out with a mallet
01:12will use cling film, and that's fine.
01:14But what I like to do, I get a Ziploc.
01:16I'm gonna take off the top of the Ziploc,
01:19and I take off the sides of the Ziploc with a knife.
01:22And then you get this nice piece of plastic
01:25that you can reuse over and over, and it's hinged.
01:28Plastic wrap sometimes gets a little fussy.
01:30It sticks to itself.
01:32I find that sacrificing one Ziploc bag
01:34for all of my pounding is well worth it.
01:37Chicken breast sometimes have little pieces of fat.
01:39I like to just trim them.
01:40A lot of times there's a little piece of cartilage
01:42and some little bloodlines here.
01:45I like to trim those out.
01:46I want it to be nice and clean and neat.
01:48I'll take the plastic Ziploc,
01:51and you don't have to really whack it.
01:53You just have to lightly tap.
01:55Make sure we're not going on an angle.
01:58You wanna be perfectly flat,
01:59because if you hit it with an edge,
02:00you're gonna get like a divot in your chicken breast.
02:03You notice how I'm focusing on the fat side,
02:05not the skinny side, right?
02:07And get in there and touch it once in a while
02:09and see how you're doing on thickness.
02:12And I think this one looks pretty good.
02:13We're not going for a chicken cutlet here.
02:15We're going on the grill.
02:16We still need some of that thickness there,
02:18so we have time to get that char.
02:20Let's get the other one in there.
02:22This one's pretty good so far.
02:23I'm not gonna go too crazy with it.
02:25Just lightly hit.
02:26I go around.
02:27I'm not just pounding in one area.
02:29And as I hit, it kind of spreads out under that plastic.
02:34It's so much more equal than it was before,
02:36and this is gonna allow us to cook it evenly.
02:38If it cooks evenly, in the end, it's gonna be juicier,
02:41especially if we take it off at the right time.
02:46One of the tricks here is to season ahead.
02:49And technically, this is called a dry brine.
02:51Chicken breast tends to get dry,
02:53but if you season ahead,
02:55the chicken breast is gonna hold on to some moisture.
02:57And basically, it could be from 30 minutes up to 12 hours.
03:01If all you have is 30 minutes, season it,
03:03put it in the fridge, let it sit for 30 minutes.
03:05It's still gonna help you
03:07get a moister, juicier chicken breast.
03:10This one tip of seasoning ahead
03:12is going to bump your game up.
03:14If you take nothing else from this video,
03:16season your chicken ahead.
03:18So, chicken breast down.
03:20I get a nice pinch of salt when I season.
03:22You notice I'm not close by,
03:23because if I'm close, I get little dots of salt.
03:26If I go up high and sprinkle back and forth,
03:29look at that, super evenly seasoned.
03:32It looks like a fresh snowfall.
03:34I can still see the chicken through the salt.
03:36And now all we do is flip it over,
03:40season the other side,
03:44and then we're gonna put it in the fridge
03:46and let it sit for at least 30 minutes up to 12 hours.
03:50That's dry brining, people.
03:51It is not complicated, it is not scary,
03:54it is super easy.
03:55And this is gonna make our chicken breast juicier
03:57than if you just seasoned it and put it on the grill.
04:02It's time to grill our chicken breast.
04:03I've let my chicken breast sit in the fridge
04:05for about two hours.
04:06And there's a couple of things
04:07that I like to focus on when I'm grilling,
04:09whether it's indoor, outdoor.
04:12The first thing you have to do
04:13is always make sure your grill is preheated.
04:16My outside grill, I usually start heating it up
04:1820 minutes before I plan on cooking.
04:20This will not only preheat my grill,
04:23it's also gonna give me a chance to clean my grill off.
04:25Anything that's left over from my last grilling session
04:28kinda carbonizes and I can scrape it off with a brush.
04:31Same thing goes for my grill pan and my grill plate.
04:34You wanna make sure that it's hot and clean.
04:36I've let this preheat on high for about 10, 15 minutes.
04:40If you're gonna use a grill pan like this in your house,
04:43ventilate.
04:44I'm getting a little wavy smoke.
04:45I hold my hand on top of it and I can feel that it's hot.
04:48If your grill is not hot and clean,
04:49your chicken breast is gonna stick.
04:51And that's what throws everyone off.
04:53I have a paper towel, I have some neutral vegetable oil.
04:56Take our oil paper towel and clean our grill.
05:00Now we can season our chicken breast.
05:02Now I want you to be careful here.
05:04Because we dry brined it,
05:06it already has some seasoning on it.
05:08So we wanna go fairly light here.
05:10That means just light with a little black pepper.
05:12Again, I go high so I get a better dispersion.
05:16And again, with my salt, nice and light.
05:19Flip it over, let's get our other side.
05:21One of the biggest mistakes home cooks make
05:23is they do not season their food enough.
05:25We've pre-seasoned this with salt,
05:27but we wanna make sure that we get the maximum amount
05:30of flavor out of this chicken breast.
05:31I tend not to do marinades, right?
05:34I'm a simple person like this.
05:35I find that marinades sometimes burn
05:37and make my chicken stick.
05:39One last thing I'm gonna do here,
05:41even though my grill is clean,
05:42I'm gonna hit this with a little olive oil on both sides.
05:45Back of the tongs is actually really good
05:47to spread out that oil.
05:49Not only does it add a little flavor,
05:51it helps ensure that we won't stick.
05:53When I take my chicken breast and I put it on the grill,
05:56I'm going to put it at 11 o'clock.
06:00A lot of people would think that when chefs do this,
06:03they just wanna get really nice grill marks.
06:05And that is part of what we're trying to do.
06:08But the other thing is actually,
06:10it's kind of like a signal to whoever's watching the grill,
06:13what state of cook we're at.
06:15If I see that my chicken breast is raw
06:18and it's at 11 o'clock,
06:19what it tells me is those were just put on the grill.
06:22If my chicken breast is at two o'clock,
06:27that's telling me the chicken breast
06:29has been on for a few more minutes.
06:31When I flip it, if it's at 11 o'clock and I see grill marks,
06:34that means my chicken breast is about halfway through.
06:37Grill marks are a really good way to keep track
06:39of how long my chicken has been on the grill.
06:41Now, one of the biggest mistakes people make
06:43is they put it on here,
06:44they start to see a little bit of smoke,
06:46they start freaking out,
06:47and they get in there,
06:48they start trying to move things around.
06:49Stop moving things around.
06:51I can take a little bit of a look.
06:52I have some decent grill marks here.
06:54Look, it's not as caramelized as I want,
06:57but I'm not gonna worry about it
06:58because my chicken breasts aren't super thick.
07:00So I'm gonna give it a turn.
07:01So I go from 11 o'clock to two o'clock.
07:05If you look at this chicken breast here,
07:07you can see that the edges are starting to kind of cook
07:10and become opaque.
07:11It's not raw.
07:13I give it a quick look-see,
07:15make sure my grill marks look good.
07:17I know that it's time to turn.
07:18Just remember also with cooking, things take practice.
07:21I want you to just pay attention to your food.
07:23I do find the best way to get an accurate cook
07:26on my chicken breast
07:27is to use an instant read thermometer.
07:29When you're grilling outside,
07:30it's pretty much the same technique.
07:32On outdoor grills,
07:33you'll start to notice that most grills have hot spots.
07:36Not all of them are the same.
07:37After you oil it,
07:38the hot spots actually start to look dry,
07:41whereas the other spots that aren't super hot
07:43tend to look oily.
07:45Now, I'm looking at my chicken.
07:47I can see it's cooking up.
07:48I can see I'm getting a little moisture
07:50coming out of the chicken on top,
07:51and I'm gonna take it and turn it to that 11 o'clock.
07:55So if I have grill marks here and I'm at 11 o'clock,
07:59I know that my chicken is halfway there.
08:02If you look at this, this is thicker, this is thinner.
08:04This is obviously gonna cook faster than that.
08:06I'm gonna go and turn again.
08:08I'm starting to see a little protein leaking out over here.
08:11I'm gonna turn this chicken breast.
08:14I think this back one is really close.
08:17When I temp my chicken breast, I get my thermometer.
08:20I'm gonna take the point
08:21and put it in the thickest part of the chicken.
08:23Just stick it in there and see where you're at.
08:25I'm at about 120.
08:27I'm gonna go to about 140, 150.
08:30Technically, you're supposed to cook chicken to 165.
08:33If you cook a chicken breast to 165
08:35and then take it off the grill,
08:36it's gonna be dry and stringy.
08:38Once you take it off the grill,
08:39it still has some residual heat.
08:40It's gonna continue cooking.
08:42If I take this off at 165, it's gonna cook up to 170, 175,
08:47and that's when it gets dry and stringy.
08:49So what I'm gonna do, 150, 155,
08:51take it off the grill and let it rest.
08:53I'm gonna give it a little poke.
08:55I think this back chicken breast is really good to go.
08:58I rest it on a rack.
09:00Let me temp this chicken breast, see how we're doing.
09:03This one's a little thicker.
09:06Yeah, we're at about 120 something.
09:08So let's give it another couple of minutes on there.
09:11Took me 25 years to get down a lot of methods.
09:14If it takes you a couple of chicken breasts
09:16and you get it right, you're doing great, okay?
09:18Don't worry, don't stress.
09:20This chicken breast is getting close.
09:22I'm gonna take it off and let it rest.
09:24The chicken breasts are off of the grill.
09:26You'll notice that I have them on a rack.
09:27If we put these on a flat plate or a flat pan,
09:30it sits and it steams in its own juices,
09:32and we don't want that.
09:33We've taken the time to try and get nice grill marks.
09:36We wanna see those when we're done.
09:38If I don't let it rest and I cut that chicken breast,
09:40all the juices flow out.
09:41Don't skip the step of resting.
09:43Resting is super important.
09:44We're gonna let this rest for about five to seven minutes.
09:47A lot of people ask me,
09:48hey chef, I let it rest, it gets a little cold.
09:50First thing you wanna do is make sure
09:51you're putting it in a warm place.
09:52Notice how mine's right next to the grill.
09:54If it gets cold, just reheat it, put it in the oven,
09:57put it back on the grill for a minute or two and reheat it.
10:00Chicken is rested.
10:01If you look, there's a little bit of juice underneath
10:03and it's still hot.
10:04So all I'm gonna do is slice this,
10:06plate it with a simple salad.
10:08You'll notice on my cutting board, I have two sides.
10:10The flat side, I call this the chopping side.
10:13And the other side of the cutting board
10:14actually has this indentation or groove.
10:17It's called a juice groove so that when I slice my meat,
10:20if any juice flows off, it goes into the groove,
10:23not into my counter or my table.
10:25I'm gonna get this nice piece of chicken here
10:27and I'm gonna slice it on an angle.
10:30This is just for aesthetics so we can see the meat.
10:33It just looks pretty.
10:34You can see that it's still juicy.
10:36It's gonna be nice and tender.
10:38Use my knife as a spatula.
10:40Put it on my plate.
10:42Give it a little fan so we can see that meat.
10:44Got my nice simple salad here.
10:46Give it a light toss.
10:48Nice little wedge of lemon on here.
10:50And this is how I grill chicken breast at home.
10:52It's time to taste.
10:53Let's get in there.
10:54Let's get a little piece of this chicken.
10:58It's juicy.
10:59It's flavorful.
11:00It's tender.
11:01That dry brine gives it a nice seasoning
11:04and that dry brine kinda goes throughout the chicken.
11:06It's not just on the outside.
11:08It keeps it nice and moist.
11:10Perfect, easy weeknight meal.
11:12Grilled chicken breast does not have to be dry and stringy.
11:15Just use the techniques from this video
11:17and it's gonna be juicy and flavorful every single time.