Plain grilled chicken

[clutter]

Anyone know of any tricks to make plain grilled chicken well? Mine gets kind of dried out. That's the only way my dd will eat it, no flavor but salt.

 

[clh2]

That is the only way my DD will eat it too.

The one thing we do with chicken on our grill to prevent sticking is to lightly spray the grill grate with PAM before we grill chicken, and that helps a little bit with the drying out. Is it possible you are cooking them too long? We find with hers that if we take it off a little bit earlier than ours, that it is not as dry. (We do cut it up, so we know it is cooked. )

We typically give DD smaller pieces of the chicken, and that is why hers get cooked faster.

Oddly enough my "plain chicken DD" loves when we do whole chickens on the grill, we just make sure to not give her pieces that have skin on them. We use the Weber Poulty thing: click here We don't do a rub, but have used many different things for the marinade. This gets a great moist chicken, and they cook in about 45 minutes to an hour on our grill.

 

[MickeyMike]

I think the big secret to this is to use a thermometer so you don't let it get overcooked. Take the meat off at 150 degrees. It will "coast" up to the 160 degree mark that you want to kill all bacteria. I think that it is best to grill it over high heat also. Most people use the slow roast method which basically just allows the meat to drip all of its goodness into the fire.

 

[lissawynn]

You can cook it frozen. This usually keeps a lot of the moisture in the meat. I also marinate mine in extra light olive oil with a little salt and pepper. That works well, too.

 

[disneymcgraw]

Have you tried using a George Foreman grill to cook it? I like to use it because the chicken stays moist.

 

[merrily]

My son will only eat plain grilled chicken and he doesn't like the grill marks either. I wrap his in foil and throw it on the grill. Keeps it juicy and no grill marks!

 

[ducklite]

I'm another vote for a little olive oil brushed or drizzled on it. No flavor and keeps it amazingly moist.

Anne

 

[Ranatra]

is it boneless or bone in?
Just don't overcook it. If it's a boneless breast, 4-5 minutes on each side will do it. If it's dry, it's on the grill too long.

 

[kelleigh1]

One thing to keep in mind when grilling meat is that you never want to pierce it. This actually releases the juices and dries it out. So don't stab it with a fork or anything during the grilling process.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

A-Ha...Queen of bland food cooking here. I have discovered a fool proof way to make it.
I was watching the Japanese hibachi grill folks and decided to try it their way.
The bonus here is that you can try different marinades so you can have different chicken tastes along with dd's plain chicken.

All you do is cut up the chicken breast to bite size pieces, then heat the pan hot with oil and cook it up quick.
Doesn't take more than a few minutes.

If you want marinade for you just cook your chicken pieces after that. Find a favorite marinade and soak for a few mins., then fry up the same way.

 

[Southern4sure]

I wrap up a chicken breast in parchment paper (kinda like a present) and microwave for a few minutes. Depends on the size and thickness but usually 3 minutes is enough. Quite juicy.

 

[clutter]

Wow, what a bunch of great ideas!!! I'm going to try just about all of them. I'm a hopeless cook when it comes to plain stuff. (Although I've learned to grill a mean rare steak!)

Actually, my dd also likes roast chicken with gravy, but with just the two of us, and she doesn't like it re-heated, we don't do that much. But her all time favorite is our local middle eastern kabob place (Moby Dicks if anyone is from the DC area). One of these days, I'm going to swing by our local middle eastern market to get the spices to marinate it myself. One night, I tried putting a little italian dressing on the meat. My dd claimed she couldn't taste the difference, but then declared the plain one better. The problem is more me than her, because I can't stand naked grilled chicken. (And if that's not a line for the tag fairy, I don't know what one is!)

Thanks all!