Grilling and Broiling Tips:
To prevent dryness, leave the skin on the chicken during cooking, which helps preserves the chicken's natural moisture.
Be sure racks are clean and coat them with vegetable oil or a nonstick vegetable oil spray to help prevent sticking.
When grilling, aromatic woods, such as hickory, mesquite or cherry, can be added to the preheated coals to give the chicken a distinctive flavor.
Place smaller pieces of chicken around the outer edges, further away from the main heat source, to allow them to cook slower.
Do not use a fork to turn the chicken as it cooks. The piercing causes the juices to escape.
To speed grilling or broiling time, partially cook the chicken in the microwave first. Microwave on high approximately 4 to 5 minutes per pound, or 3 to 4 minutes if using cut up parts. Grill or broil the microwaved pieces of chicken immediately to finish cooking.
Tenderness Tips:
Avoid freezing whenever possible to eliminate additional moisture loss during thawing, which results in less tender meat.
Keep chicken from drying out in the refrigerator by keeping it tightly wrapped. If the chicken dries out, it will become tough.
Leaving the skin on the chicken, when cooking it, helps to hold in juices, which increases tenderness.
To keep breast area of chicken from drying out during roasting, place a piece of foil over this area. Remove during last 30 minutes of roasting time to allow the skin to brown properly.
Cook chicken to the proper temperature, because undercooking the chicken will cause it to be tough and overcooking the chicken causes loss of moisture, making the chicken drier.
Let roasted chicken rest for 10 to 15 minutes before carving to allow juices to be distributed throughout the meat. Standing the chicken up with bottom end up allows more juices to run into the drier breast area.
Cutting meat across the grain will produce slices with shorter fibers, resulting in more tender pieces.
When adding cooked chicken to dishes that have a long cooking time, it is best to use dark meat because it will stay moist longer than white meat.
