The Best Baked Chicken Breasts

Move over dry and bland boneless skinless chicken breasts! This recipe guarantees juicy, flavorful chicken breasts every single time.

Boneless skinless chicken breasts can sometimes be a bit dry and bland, but not if you bake them according to these instructions. Here you’ll find only juicy and flavorful chicken breasts ever single time.

That’s because I’ve done a series of little experiments to find out exactly how to make boneless skinless chicken breasts that are juicy and delicious. If you follow these instructions, you’ll be amazed at how much better this popular food can be.

We’ll be baking the chicken breasts for this method, because it’s the simplest way to cook them. Note that a lot of the things I’ve found out though, like the minimum brining time, will apply to any way you’d like to cook your chicken breasts.

To be clear, we’re talking about boneless skinless chicken breasts below. If you want instructions for baked bone-in chicken breasts, you can find that over here.

What Size Of Chicken Breast Should I Use?

If the chicken breasts are larger than 6 ounces, you should cut them in half. When the chicken breasts are really big like that, it takes a long time for the middle to fully cook through. That means that the outside of the chicken breasts are exposed to heat for a long time and that will dry them out.

If the chicken breasts are large like that, I like to cut them on the diagonal so that each half looks like a small chicken breast with its somewhat triangular shape. Here is a video showing how to cut chicken breasts in half on the diagonal:

How To Make Chicken Breasts An Even Thickness To Cook More Evenly

It can also be helpful to pound the breasts slightly so they are an even thickness. This is for the same reason as cutting the chicken breasts in half, really. You see, if part of your chicken breast is thicker than the other, it will take longer for that part to get to a safe temperature. As it gets there, the slimmer part is going to dry out. Note that the rounded end of the chicken breast is usually thicker than the pointy end, so that’s what we’ll be targeting.

What I do is to put a chicken breast between some pieces of plastic wrap (that stops chicken juices from flying around your kitchen when you start hitting them). Then I use a rolling pin or flat meat mallet to pound the thicker side down until it’s the same thickness as the thinner side.

In the end, you’ll have a chicken breast (or half of a chicken breast in this case) that is of an even thickness. It will therefore cook more evenly.

Also, since it is overall a bit thinner than when it started, it will cook through more quickly. The quicker it cooks, the better since that means the chicken is being exposed to drying heat for less time. Here is the full method with pictures for pounding the chicken breasts evenly.

Do I Need To Brine Chicken Breasts?

Please do! I conducted a thorough chicken breast brining experiment to find out if brining makes a difference to chicken breasts, and what the minimum amount of time is that we can brine chicken breasts for to have an effect.

I can tell you for sure that brining chicken breasts, even for as little as 15 minutes, has a big effect, so it’s definitely worth doing and doesn’t have to be time-consuming.

What else did my brining experiment find out? First, cold tap water works better than warm water. I had read over here that warm water is better, but when I actually did the side-by-side comparison, the cold water brine was definitely the winner. So stick with cold tap water in your brine.

How long do you brine chicken breasts for?

I found that 15 minutes in the brine had a significant effect on the flavor of the chicken. The salt in the brine really penetrated and made the entire breast taste better. However, at the 15-minute mark there was no effect for juiciness or tenderness.

It turns out that the sweet spot is between 30-60 minutes for brining chicken breasts. It’s at that point that the chicken meat actually starts to change texture and hold in the liquid. However, since that amount of time can be impractical on a weeknight, the recipe below just states 15-30 minutes.

Here is what I’d recommend though. Mix up your brine, add your chicken breasts, and then get everything else prepped for your dinner. If that takes 15 minutes, you’ll get the effect of the seasoning. If your prep takes longer, then you’re getting closer to that sweet spot.

Note that 2 hours in the brine is where I draw the line. At 2 hours the chicken stops benefiting from the brine and it can actually become too salty.

The brine recipe that I use

My usual brine recipe is 4 tablespoons of Morton’s kosher salt mixed with 4 cups of cold tap water. If you have a different kind of salt, you’ll want to have a look at my my full brine recipe, because you’ll use a different amount depending on the size of the salt crystals.

I also typically add a tablespoon of garlic powder, and sometimes also 1 teaspoon of paprika to the brine mixture for added flavor. Just mix it up really well before adding the chicken.

Do you need to refrigerate the chicken and brine?

I typically place the cold brine and cold raw chicken into a gallon zipper bag or large bowl and leave it right on the counter. This will be fine for up to 40 minutes. If you’re going to brine for any longer than 40 minutes, I recommend that you put the brine with the chicken in it into the fridge to keep the food safe from bacteria.

After the chicken has been brined, it does not need to be immediately cooked. It can be removed from the brine and kept in the refrigerator, covered, for up to three days, or wrapped well and stored in the freezer for up to two months.

How To Bake Chicken Breasts

Preheat the oven to 400°F, which is hot enough for the chicken to bake quickly, but not so hot that it begins to dry out. Remove the chicken from the brine and pat dry. 

Transfer the chicken to a baking dish and add some olive oil. Toss the chicken around in the oil until chicken breasts are well-coated. You can use tongs for this or use an olive oil mister or cooking spray to get an even amount of oil on the chicken breasts. Rearrange the chicken breasts in the baking dish so that they are in a single layer and not overlapping. 

How Should I Season Chicken Breasts?
The salt brine adds a lot of flavor to the chicken breasts. But you can always add more! If desired, right before baking sprinkle the chicken with your favorite seasoning blend or herbs and spices, like a pinch or two of paprika, ground cumin, or garlic powder. For the pictures used in this article, I went with some dehydrated garlic, dehydrated onion, and red pepper flakes.

Whatever seasoning you use just remember, the chicken has already been brined in salt, so you shouldn’t add salt, or a blend that contains salt, when adding the additional seasoning.

Place the dish in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer placed into the center of the thickest part of one of the chicken breasts registers an internal temperature of 160°F. Remove the dish from the oven and let that stand for about five minutes before serving. Don’t skip this step. Letting the chicken rest allows the juices inside to settle down and soak in, so that they don’t come rushing out when you cut into the chicken.

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