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This quick chicken brine leads to the juiciest, most tender chicken you’ve ever cooked, and it does it in as little as 2 hours. With savory flavor in every bite, I guarantee you’ll use this simple method every time you roast a whole chicken or pieces of chicken from now on.
💧 What Makes This Recipe So Good
- You only need a couple of hours for this brine, making it totally doable when you remember that, oh yeah, you have to cook dinner tonight, just like every night. You know that’s how it happens… at least in our house. Anyway, This quick chicken brine is everything I ever wanted and more (no hyperbole, I swear). It’s flavorful, simple, and quick.
- The reasons this quick chicken brine works are simple: 1) The salt content is higher than most brines, so it works more effectively and more quickly than a standard brine. 2) The hot solution extracts the flavors from the aromatics much faster than a standard brine. The ice bath cools things down quickly, too, so you don’t risk cooking the chicken as it brines.
- You can include garlic, peppercorns, herbs, citrus, or any other aromatics you might fancy, but it works wonders without all the fancy add-ins, too. Especially if you’re stretching a chicken to use over several recipes, this basic salt + water mixture can be the best choice. You don’t want to find yourself with rosemary-infused chicken in, I don’t know, a Thai dish. Could be cool, but… probably not your favorite.
🧂 What Goes Into a Brine?
Brining is a simple concept: when making a wet brine, you make a salt solution and flavor it with spices, herbs, and sometimes sugar. Just how high the salt content will depend on how quickly you want to brine the meat – this brine, for instance, has a higher salt content so you can brine quickly. Whereas, with your Thanksgiving turkey, you reduce the overall salt density so you can brine it longer. This is necessary because that dang bird is so big.
Many people season their chicken brine with sugar, too, but we a) don’t love sugar in our food and b) find that a salt-only brine produces a super versatile chicken that truly just tastes better and more tender and juicier.
🤔 Why Should You Use a Brine?
We’ve all had overcooked chicken – not so good, right? A chicken brine does two things:
- It gives the poultry flavor, and
- it keeps the meat tender and juicy.
When you brine chicken, you’re essentially installing a failsafe on your dish. You have more wiggle room to cook the bird without it becoming dry after one minute too long in the oven, and you have creative control over the flavors throughout the entire muscle meat of your chicken, not just the skin.
👩🏼🍳 Chef’s Tips
- Don’t over-brine the chicken! The salt solution is higher than your standard overnight brine, so you want to make sure to limit your brining time to 2-3 hours at room temperature or 4-6 hours in the fridge.
- I like to brine my chicken in the morning, drain after a few hours, then let it air dry in the fridge until I’m ready to cook it. Air drying allows the skin to really dry out, so that when you sear, fry, or roast it, the skin gets unbelievably crisp and delicious.
💬 Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! Please, please do not brine your chicken using this recipe for longer than the recommended time. If you do, too much of the salt solution will permeate the meat, resulting in an over-salted bird.
If you’re brining boneless, skinless chicken breasts, you can get away with brining them at room temperature for about 30 minutes or chill for about 1 hour.
Brining chicken results in the most tender and flavorful meat, and it makes it harder to overcook!
🍋 More Recipes You’ll Love
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- Air Fryer Chicken Legs
- How to Cook a Turkey Perfectly (With Gravy)
- Best Ever Easy Roast Chicken (With Gravy + Whole30, Paleo Options)
- Chicken Tikka Masala
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- Grilled Baked Potatoes
Quick Chicken Brine
Equipment
- medium saucepan with lid
- Large bowl
- Large wooden spoon
- large food-safe container heavy pot, sealable bag, or sous vide tub
Ingredients
For the Brine
- ½ liter water approximately 16 ounces or 2 cups
- 5 tablespoons kosher salt 100 grams or approximately 3 ounces
- 3-6 sprigs fresh herbs of choice rosemary, thyme, parsley, etc.
- 4 large cloves garlic smashed
- 1 pound ice
For the Chicken
- 1 4-pound whole, uncooked chicken or 4 pounds of uncooked chicken pieces
Instructions
- Pour ½ liter water into medium saucepan. Add 5 tablespoons kosher salt, 3-6 sprigs fresh herbs of choice, and 4 large cloves garlic to saucepan and quickly stir to incorporate.
- Place saucepan on stovetop over high heat. Bring water to violent boil.
- Once water boils violently, stir mixture until salt is completely dissolved, then move saucepan to cool burner and cover with lid. Let mixture stand, covered, 10 minutes.
- Place 1 pound ice in large bowl. After brine mixture has stood 10 minutes, remove lid and carefully pour mixture into bowl over ice. Stir mixture gently until ice is completely melted.
- When ice has melted, place 1 4-pound whole, uncooked chicken in large container. Carefully pour brine over chicken, making sure chicken is entirely submerged.
- Let chicken rest in brine 2 to 3 hours at room temperature. Alternately, let chicken rest in brine 4 to 6 hours in refrigerator.
- After chicken has brined for appropriate length of time, remove chicken from brine and drain well. Pat chicken completely dry with paper towels, then cook chicken as desired.
- After brining your chicken, don’t add any salt when you cook it or the chicken will be way too salty.
- Fresh Herbs: You can use just one type of herb or a blend of your favorites.
- Chicken: If you want to brine boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken, you can cut the brining time back to 30-60 minutes at room temperature and 1-2 hours refrigerated.
- For a really crispy chicken skin, brine the chicken then let it air dry in the fridge until you’re ready to cook it.
Alternate Brine Add-Ins
- 1 white onion, sliced
- 1-2 lemons, sliced into coins
- bay leaves
- cracked peppercorns
- Italian seasoning
- carrots
- sweetener (white sugar, brown sugar, or honey)
- fresh cilantro
- sliced fresh jalapeños
Approximate Information for One Serving
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
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Cheap! Easy! Delicious!
I use this all the time. I won’t cook chicken without using this brine first.
Yay! <3
I may have missed it, if so, I apologize….in your recipe are you talking about Iodized Salt or Kosher Salt?
We like to use Kosher salt!
This is the best brine and so simple. Totally makes a huge difference in how your chicken tastes. Use organic chicken.
I’m so glad you’ve found it helpful, Paul! I love to use organic chicken, too. It’s actually even more important for organic, since conventional is often injected with saline solution.
Which salt did you use.? Kosher & table salt..?? I think this very important for the brining in your method.
We use Kosher salt!
If I’m doing a 16-18 pound turkey, what ratio would be good to use or could I just triple the ingredients?
We’d use 3 gallons of water, 1 ½ cups of water, sprigs of herbs, 8 -10 cloves garlic, and 45 ounces of ice.
Are there any risks to leaving chicken at room temperature for 2-3 hours? Do you take any additional precautions? Thanks!
David, I normally plan the brine process so that I could finish the brine process as short as possible before cooking. In other words I’ll thaw, brine, cook with the shortest possible interruption in between. If you thaw, brine for 2-3 hours and then refrigerate/cook you should not have issues, HOWEVER room temperature could vary from place to place. Our summer temperature is average 28 degrees Celsius and winter 12. I normally place my brine in the refrigerator during summer and outside in winter.
The brine itself is quite cold to start with so you shouldn’t have any problems! If you live in a very warm area, though, you might want to keep that toward the short end!
This looks delicious. Would you please confirm the amount of chicken you’re using? Is that 1 3/4 pounds?
Thank you 🙂
Yes!
What if you dont have fresh herbs handy? Amounts of dried to use?
I used this on chicken breasts and for the first time ever my husband was ok with having chicken for dinner. Yay! I guess this is our new go to.
We use this every time and it’s always delicious.