Our Best Winter Chicken Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you make cold chicken taste better? ›

You could try flavors such as honey mustard, lemon thyme garlic, orange rosemary, raspberry and balsamic vinegar… let your imagination guide you. Also, I find that these are plenty tasty as is, but you could also create all sorts of dipping sauces to go with them.

You can roast or bake anywhere between 325 and 450 degrees F. When roasting a whole chicken, a nice rule of them is to start at 400 to 425 degrees F and then turn the oven down to 350 after 15 minutes and cook until the internal temp of the chicken is 165 – 175 degrees F on an instant read thermometer.

It's always a great idea to cover your dishes with aluminum foil while cooking at high temperatures in the oven. It protects your food from drying out or burning and helps keep in the heat and moisture, ensuring a perfectly cooked meal. Loosely covering your dish with foil can prevent uneven browning while baking.

Use a brine

Brining your chicken is a foolproof way to not only add flavour to your roast but also to ensure you don't overcook the meat. Essentially a mix of salt, sugar and water, we love adding herbs, garlic or whole spices such as fennel and cumin to flavour the brine.

Add a touch of spice to your chicken breast by combining paprika, cinnamon, turmeric, cumin, ginger, garlic and olive oil to create a paste. Then cover your chicken breast with the paste and pat down to secure.

Brine. Like a marinade, a brine helps chicken breast soak up as much moisture as possible before cooking. It only requires three ingredients: water, salt, and a pinch of sugar.

Brines and marinades help tenderize the meat by bringing more moisture in the protein. With that extra moisture, you lose less when you cook.

Aside from classics like salt, pepper, basil and garlic, you could try using chilli powder, ginger, cumin, cayenne, paprika, oregano, sage, rosemary and thyme.

What does putting a lemon in a chicken do? ›

The benefits of the hot steaming lemon going into the chicken are very obvious as the meat tastes amazing, and the chicken cooks slightly quicker because of it. Rub the chicken inside and out with a generous amount of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Just sprinkling a little salt on top of your chicken right before cooking it will only season the surface. But seasoning the chicken with salt well ahead of time or brining it in a salt-water solution will draw salt deep into the meat, resulting in a very tasty piece of chicken.

Directions. Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Season the beef with salt and pepper; sear in a hot roasting pan with the olive oil to brown on all sides, 3 to 4 minutes each side. Transfer to oven; roast, allowing 15 minutes a pound (450g) for rare or 20 minutes a pound (450g) for medium.

When making foods that have a solid structure (vegetables or meats), you should roast the food. If you're making foods that aren't solid before cooking (cake, bread, etc), you should bake the food. While both methods use dry heat, the process and the temperatures can vary due to the structure of the food.

Oven Temperature

Go low and slow for a very tender, falling-off-the-bone flesh and softer skin (say, 300 to 350 degrees for 1 ½ to 2 hours or so). Or roast it fast and furiously for less time for crisp, dark brown skin and firmer, chewier flesh (between 375 and 500 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours).