Countrified Hicks: Comprehensive Guide to Boiling Chicken

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Comprehensive Guide to Boiling Chicken

Once you learn how to boil chicken perfectly, you'll find it is a great way to create a protein rich meal for your family that is also healthy, low in saturated fat and super flavorful. Other methods of cooking chicken, such as grilling, baking, etc., tend to dry out chicken breasts and other cuts but when you boil them, the chicken turns out super juicy every single time.

Boiled chicken is delicious as a meal on its own or you can chop it up or shred it and use it in a garden salad, in a pasta dish, or as part of your main dish like my Barbecue Chicken Pizza.

Boiling chicken is easy. If you ever hear of someone referring to "poach chicken", it just means boiled chicken. To boil chicken breasts, just place your chicken into a pot.

Add enough cold water to completely cover the chicken.

Add in 2 chicken bouillon cubes, a teaspoon of sea salt and a tablespoon of chives.

Turn your stove on to medium-high heat and bring the liquid to a steady boil. Once it is boiling, reduce your heat; cover the pot with a lid and let it simmer until the chicken is no longer pink and reaches an internal temperature of 170 degrees F.

The chicken breasts I used were HUGE (over a pound each) so it took 40 minutes to be cooked all the way through. Smaller, boneless chicken breasts should take about 20 minutes to cook and if you are cooking bone-in breasts, expect it to cook for at least 30 minutes. An entire chicken will need to cook about 1 1/2 hours or reach an internal temperature of 180 degrees F.

Once the chicken is done and cooled, you can shred the chicken with a fork. Like I mentioned before, boiled chicken can be used in a variety of ways. Try this chicken in one of the following ways for your supper tonight and you won't be disappointed.