Boneless skinless chicken breasts are by far the most popular cut of meat sold in America today. They are low in fat, they are quick and easy to make and they can be cooked in just about any recipe. Chicken breasts truly are one of the most universal products in our kitchens today. As a chef I have over fifty thousand different recipes and while I have never counted I would be willing to bet that more than a third of them have chicken breasts in them.

But sadly like many other food items when chicken breasts are not cooked properly they are not very good they end up dry, and stringy. On the other side of things when cooked right they are moist, tender and very flavorful.

The key is to learn how to cook chicken breasts so they come out moist and tender all the time. So here are a few tips that can help you achieve this every time.

One of the first things that we have to understand when learning how to cook chicken has to do with the basic methods of methods of cooking. All cooking can be broken down in three main methods those being: Dry Heat, Moist Heat, and Combination. Dry heat methods include baking, broiling, roasting, grilling, sautéing and deep frying. Moist heat methods include poaching, boiling, steaming and slow cooking. Combination methods normally start with a dry method and finish with a moist method the most common forms of this are braising and stewing.

The reason this is important when learning how to cook chicken breasts is because chicken breasts like many other foods tend to do better with certain cooking methods and not so well in others. The ways to cook chicken are baking, roasting, grilling, sautéing, steaming and poaching as you can see most of these are dry cooking methods but they do good in a couple of moist methods as well. It just does not hold up well in some of the longer cooking methods. (Chicken breasts do great being deep fried but that kind of kills the low-fat part)

Your goal when cooking chicken breasts should be to stay within those preferred cooking methods. That why you are not shooting in the foot before you even start.

1. Chicken Breasts tend to low in fat and have very little connective tissues so they tend to cook fast and can be very unforgiving if cooked to long. To help combat this it is best to either brine or marinate the chicken breasts beforehand.

2. Chicken breasts tend to be a little bit uneven in size one side being thin and the other being almost double in size. It is best pound it out a little so that it is more even which will promote even cooking.

3. With chicken breasts or any other kind of meat you need to let the food rest for a few minutes after cooking. If you cut into something right after you cook all the juices come flooding out and leave you with a dry product but if you give it a couple of minutes those juices settle back into the meat and you get that nice juicy chicken breast you where looking for.

4. The USDA recommend cooking chicken to 165 degree F. to be safe and I completely agree with this but the problem is that once you stop cooking the meat will continue to cook about 5 more degrees this is called carry over cooking and can easily cause you to end up with an over done chicken breast. When I cook chicken breasts I shot to take the meat off the heat as soon as it hits 160 this way it does not get over cooked.