How to Grill Chicken | Get Cookin’ | Allrecipes

Nicole makes the most flavorful, tender, and juicy grilled chicken ever using her own homemade marinade and grilling technique.

Ingredients
6 (6 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1/4 cup olive oil

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

oil or cooking spray

2 teaspoons kosher salt

Directions
Trim any excess fat from chicken. Place a piece of plastic or parchment on top of each chicken breast on a solid, level surface, and pound the thick end of chicken to flatten to an even thickness.

Place chicken in a large resealable plastic bag. Add olive oil, Dijon, honey, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic, onion powder, and ginger to the bag. Press any excess air out of the bag and seal the bag tightly. Massage chicken around in the bag until marinade is fully incorporated and chicken is well coated. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight, turning the bag occasionally.

Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, about 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Brush the grill grates with oil or coat with cooking spray.

Place chicken, top side down, on the grill. Sprinkle evenly with salt. Cook, undisturbed, until chicken easily releases from the grill and has dark brown grill marks, about 3 minutes. Flip and cook an additional 5-7 minutes or until chicken has reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees F (73 degrees C). Remove from heat and let stand 5 to 10 minutes before serving.
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there’s nothing worse than dried chewy burnt chicken on the grill well I have cracked the code on how to get juicy grilled chicken that’s tender and flavorful every single time I’m going to cover four steps to getting juicy chicken from the selection to the prepping the cooking and the serving what I’m showing you how to grill is the boneless skinless chicken breast because I think it’s the most popular cut the most crowd-pleasing and it’s also very versatile also think it can be sometimes the most challenging when I’m choosing my boneless skinless chicken bre I really like to choose something that is from the more hormone free organic Natural Selections if you can because they’re just going to be a little more tender and usually a little more smaller in size I also love choosing the organic chicken because it just has a more natural kind of pink color to me that signifies a little more freshness some of these that are just more commercialized just don’t look quite as appealing people are going to get mad that I’m not rining my chicken I only rinse my chicken sometimes or wash it as you say if it’s like really slimy or packed in like a bunch of juice but this is um pretty clean and dry on its own so the first step is to just kind of trim it and clean it up so I’ll just kind of trim off these little in pieces these are just going to burn on the grill anyway what we’re looking to do in this step is to create a chicken breast that is more uniform in size so you’ll notice it’s just the natural way they’re shaped there’s a fat end and a really skinny end if this skin end is really long like on this one I’m going to go ahead and just trim that off and save it for stir fry or stock or something like that it’s just going to create a better experience on the grill so I just like to keep the same shape of the chicken and just kind of cut off that little tail end a lot of what I’m teaching today you can also do with a bone in piece of chicken breast the main thing to remember when you’re cooking with bone in versus boneless is that it’s going to take a little bit longer to cook look if you still have one end that’s significantly larger what we want to do is try to get it to a little more of a uniform thickness so I’m just going to kind of pound this end to match the thickness of this end and now you see it’s just a lot more uniform in thickness so the purpose of that is to promote even cooking and also it tenderizes it just a little bit more chicken breast are really low low in fat so it takes a lot to kind of keep them tender you know fattier cuts of meat as it cooks that fat kind of permeates through and kind of you know softens it up keeps it really moist we have to kind of help that along so even though it’s large all the way through it’s even now that’s what we want it’s worth this extra 2 seconds to do at home okay part two of the prepping stage is marinating now because chicken breast are lower in fat they lack a little bit of flavor when you’re talking about burgers and steaks they have a high higher fat content so they can easily be just seasoned on the outside and thrown directly on the grill with chicken breast we’re not going to do that I think marinating is key and when it comes to marinating I like for it to all happen in a plastic bag I think it is key to maximizing the efficiency of this process and that’s because air can’t get inside once we create this marinade in here we’re going to squeeze out all the air and it just allows for it to happen faster and more effectively if you don’t remember anything else from this episode remember this formula I want you to remember kind of the concept and not necessarily the specific ingredients so to me a perfect marinade consists of five elements the first is something salty I usually stand at the refrigerator with my bag of meat open and I just start pouring stuff in but I’ll tone it down a little bit so I always first look for something salty so for me it’s I’m just going you know old school classic here a little bit of soy sauce and wer Shear but you could also do something like liquid amino or fish sauce or even just like the brine from pickles or Capers you know this is when having that condiment door stocked up really comes in handy it’s also a way I just kind of use stuff up okay so I’m going to go in with a few tablespoons of wer shear and then couple tablespoons of soy sauce I am doing the lower sodium I don’t like to add my salt my literal salt in at this step because sometimes I think it makes the meat a little tough I like to season the salt just before it hits the grill that’s the salt salty the second component would be to balance that out with something sweet so for me it’s almost always honey and the sweet serves an important purpose here also besides flavor it’s going to help create that caramelization on the grill so that’s why a piece of grilled chicken is a lot more flavorful than just a plain one baked in the oven so for me it’s usually honey it’s just easy I always have it but another good choice would be maple syrup or brown sugar salty sweet acid the acid is very important it also helps tenderize and kind of break down you know the tissue in the meat but you have to be careful with the acid because too much of it can actually cook the meat if you think about Ceviche where it’s cooked where it kind of cooks the outside of the fish with you know a lot of citrus we’re not trying to cook anything We’re just trying to flavor and tender so I’m going in with a couple tablespoons of lemon juice probably the juice of a whole lemon other good choices here are vinegars like you know your rice vinegar your red wine vinegar you could also add wine as an acid sometimes salad dressings another acid that I usually always add is some mustard this just adds great flavor so I go in with about a tablespoon of Dijon fourth component is a fat if you think about a salad dressing it does have a fat to balance out that vinegar usually in it so I’m adding in some just plain olive oil this also helps because that chicken is so lean so we need a fat in there to keep it moist you could stop there but I think the fifth component is also important and that’s just your flavorings your aromatics your seasonings this is where you do you Boo for me it’s always garlic now two to three cloves the smaller your garlic is chopped the more flavor it has so I love pushing it through a garlic press I can just do like some lemon pepper a little ginger a little onion powder you could also just chop up some onion if you’ve got rim left in your fridge um Chili Peppers would be good to add and then herbs that’s the formula salt sweet acid fat and flavor so now you’ve got to get it all up in [Applause] there we haven’t even dired a bowl yet people now after I toss it I like to squeeze out any extra air an important part of the marinating process is time the longer you have the better okay I love at least 4 hours if you’re going to cook that night prep it up in the morning even better if you can do it the night before you just know this is going to be flavorful if you do not have the time something you could do is kind of make little slits in the chicken to allow that marinade to you know seep in more or pierce it with a fork before you put it in the bag if you don’t have time don’t skip the step okay there are ways around it and then we’re just going to leave in the fridge till it’s time to go Grill lucky for you I did one same exact measurements so now get yourself some tongs get yourself a pan and hit the grill I’m going gas grill because it’s just the easiest it’s really easy to control doesn’t take as long cuz you don’t have to set up the coals but there’s one main point when it comes to the actual grilling and that is is for me start high and fast and finish lower and slower so that’s what I do I get my grill fired up if you are doing this on a charcoal grill you’ll want to set up a direct heat section and an indirect heat section so you’ll want to push all your coals to one side get one side really hot and then you can move it to an indirect side when you’re working with a gas grill it’s just a simple turn of a knob you want to get your grill real hot once your grill is hot you want to oil the grates this is going to prevent the sticking again that chicken does not have a lot of fat in it I like to kind of get an old towel that’s clean of course put some oil down on it and using your tongs just run them over the grates since it’s so lean it doesn’t have that fat to help it keep from sticking could also just take a heat proof brush and brush the grates and then on goes the chicken you want to put it presentation inside down first and I like to put it down a little bit at a diagonal so I can make those beautiful cross-hatch marks that you love earlier I told you I like to finish the salt part when it’s on the grill and so that’s what I’m going to do now just a little sprinkle just for some extra flavor you want to be careful for flare ups cuz we don’t want to really burn the outside I think a lot of mistake people make is they cook the outside before the inside is cooked and that’s why you end up with this you know jerk style exterior to your um grilled chicken chicken also has an internal thermometer that will tell you when it’s time to move it if it sticks a little bit to the grates it’s not ready to be touched but since it’s so high it’s going to happen kind of fast so to get those cross- hatches we’re going to take it from one diagonal to the other at this point I’m going to crank the heat down a little bit look at that okay once they’re flipped this is when I like to add a little of the marinade it’ll have time to finish cooking this is just extra flavor and now you want to move it off the direct heat now I like to close it and just maintain your grill temperature to about like medium so what would be like the equivalent of like 325 to 350 in the oven this will climb up pretty fast after you close it the main thing here is you don’t want to overcook it so if you need a little extra insurance let’s take our thermometer close we want to get to like 162 to 165 just maintain the temperature and let it cook without burning on the outside for funsies I’m throwing on a piece of chicken that’s Breaking All the Rules an UNP ped huge piece of chicken salt and pepper no marinade high heat the final Rule and this is just as important as the actual cooking process is when they’re done you have to let them rest you’ve worked so hard to keep those juices in let them live gorgeous I’m I kind of tint it to keep it warm we’re going to let it rest and I’m going to show you the fourth and final step on how to serve it up while this chicken is going to be juicy enough to eat without a sauce I’m gifting to you the perfect sauce for grilled chicken or anything off the grill for that matter and guess what you don’t have to cook it I give to you my Italian Sala ver this is like the Italian version of a chimy cherry sauce and it’s so easy you just mix it all together okay you don’t have to use a food processor but we’re saving time and I’m also going in with a couple green onions couple tablespoons of C papers couple cloves of garlic a little squeeze of anchovy paste or a couple fillets of anchovy and you want to pulse this up until it’s really fine or you can just chop it up really finely that’s what you want just super finely chopped now we transfer it to a bowl okay so then you just stir in the remaining ingredients crushed red pepper and then this has a really nice bright lemon flavor so you want to use a couple teaspoons of zest and a couple tablespoons of juice a little splash of red wine vinegar and that’s it you just stir in the olive oil well oh man that’s so good it’s just so fresh and bright okay the moment you’ve all been waiting for time to serve up the perfect juicy chicken here’s what it looks like after it’s taken its little [Applause] nap it’s not swimming in a puddle of juice but it has you know rested a little bit so we know that the juice is still inside the chicken that’s a good thing you can tell how moist it is and you saw how easy it was to cut so we know it’s tender how does it taste it’s so good it’s so tender it’s flavorful it’s the perfect piece of grilled chicken and here’s how you can create the perfect bite with the perfect piece of grilled chicken I just want to show you what happens when you break the rules this is the chicken that broke all the rules this was not made even to start with it was cooked at the higher temperature and till it was fully cooked [Music] through no juice follow my four steps to grill chicken and I promise it’ll be perfectly juicy every single time I think that’s why people say they don’t like chicken breast cuz they don’t know how to cook a chicken breast exactly what I said okay so y’all need to get together and watch this L’s TV take the lesson right take a lesson