Grilled chicken pretty much represents a common meal on all continents and in almost every household. There are quite a number of reasons which may explain why this particular recipe is popular with so many people. Not only is it very tasty, but it’s also easy to cook by anyone willing to spare a few minutes of their lives. You don’t need to be a chef in order to cook one, but once in a while, you do need a couple of easy tips on how to make it better in the case that you’re thinking about changing its taste a bit, or trying something new with an old recipe.
So, without any other introductions, here are five easy ways which you can use to make your grilled chicken better. Remember that these are easy to apply and also won’t cost a fortune, so just about anyone anywhere in the world can change up their grilled chicken recipes in order to make them better from all the points of view.
1. Buy good chicken meat
It is common knowledge that quality poultry tastes better, which is why you must always look for the best type of chicken meat in the store whenever you go shopping. Besides the fact that you must make sure the chicken you’re buying doesn’t have a funny smell or color, there are a couple of things that you can look for to make sure the meat you’re buying is the best of its kind. With this in mind, you should search for the meat which is antibiotic-free and organic. A great tip in order to ensure that the meat you’re buying is indeed natural and organic is to purchase it from a local farmer, as this can also give you the peace of mind that the meat didn’t come from thousands of miles away as the benefits of eating organic and unprocessed food are simply amazing.
2. A grill is not an oven
This one can be considered pretty self-explanatory. A grill is not an oven for a number of reasons, one of them being the fact that you can’t just time it to cook at a certain temperature and then leave it for half an hour and come back to the food already cooked and perfect. A grill requires much more attention when compared to an oven, as it can also bring in a stronger and better taste.
In order to make sure that your chicken doesn’t get burned and cooks perfectly, you must always watch the grill, preferably with a bottle of water nearby so that you can extinguish any flames that might come up. The fat of the chicken will most definitely draw flames, but if you’re near and extinguish them in time, the meat won’t get burned. With this in mind, making sure that your meat doesn’t get burned by controlling the fire and turning it from a side to another, but also make sure that it won’t be undercooked as turning it too often can give this result.
3. Use spices and sauces to give the meat a special flavor
Adding some special sauces or spices on the chicken meat while it cooks can definitely improve the taste. Besides the usual, salt and pepper, there are some other spices which you can mix and then rub on the skin of the chicken to make it taste amazing.
You can find many such combinations on various cooking websites or in cook books, but the most commonly used are lemons and oranges squeezed over the cooking meat, which are known to moisten the meat and give it a nice flavor while also keeping the flames away. Paprika and pepper can also be used as they’re sure to give your grilled chicken a nice special flavor. Leaving aside the number of spices that can be used in order to improve grilled chicken, there are also a few sauces which can make it taste even better. Examples of these include mustard, mayonnaise, garlic and ketchup. Whichever you decide to use is completely your choice and the decision should be done according to your taste.
4. Let the meat cook
While cooking the chicken meat on the grill, remember: let the meat cook. Don’t turn it every thirty seconds because that won’t make it cook faster, on the contrary, it will only make it lose the flavor and probably, the skin too which let’s all admit, is the best part. By turning it from a side to another too often, the meat won’t have the time to cook on the inside, so although it looks done on the outside, it’s raw on the inside.
The best way to know when to turn the meat is to check the skin. If the skin does no longer stick to the grill, then it’s time to turn it. If not, it still needs time to cook. Usually, it should be done in ten minutes, but if you scraped and cleaned the grill well, then you can rest assured, because the skin of the chicken will let you know when the meat is cooked.
In conclusion, making your grilled chicken taste better pretty much only requires a few minutes of your time together with the desire to do so. As you may have seen, just about anyone can use the tips outlined above and make sure that only the best ingredients are used whenever they decide to cook grilled chicken.
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