Athletes in the Kitchen: How to Cook Chicken

Welcome to episode 2 of our Athletes in the Kitchen Series with Chris Newport and Chef John.

We’ll be dropping a new episode the first Tuesday of every month focusing on different ways of helping athletes and busy professionals purchase, prepare and cook delicious, healthy and high-performance meals and snacks.

Today’s episode is all about how to cook chicken, which is one of the most googled search terms for recipes. We start with how to properly purchase chicken, which is a great start to having a delicious meal.

John tells us why we should choose the whole chicken versus just the breast or thigh. He also gives us some great herbs to try for cooking a whole chicken and why “whatever you like” is not wrong. John shares his tricks to cooking a whole chicken in the oven, including using a rack (like this one), using a digital food thermometer (and why that’s KEY to getting juicy chicken), why you should cook it with the skin on and how long it should rest after cooking.

Here’s a great meat thermometer (about $15) and oven thermometer (less than $7!).

Check out Chef John’s Whole Roasted Buttered Herb Chicken on our blog here.

We talk about how light (breast meat) and dark chicken (thigh) cooks differently, and why you should try thighs if you haven’t before.

John also shares his super easy Slow Cooker Taco Chicken (this is one of his kids’ favorite) on our blog too.

John and I are sticklers for food safety (we’re both ServSafe Managers too!), so we talk about the importance of labeling your food with “cooked on” date and “frozen on” date.

Want to know how to cook chicken on a weeknight? John gives us several ideas including marinades, BBQ seasoning, ranch, and good ol’ salt and pepper.

Want to make chicken piccata (another heavily searched term) healthier or gluten-free? John’s gives you the tips on how to do it.

Want to know how to avoid chicken from sticking in your pan or on the grill? John’s got some great tips on your pan heat as well as the right tools for grilling (and why you DON’T want to use a grill brush with steel bristles). You can use something like pumice here.

What makes a good marinade? John tells us why it should be lower in sugar and gives us the tips on what flavors you might enjoy like lime juice, orange juice and why you need to use canned pineapple juice instead of fresh.

You can marinate chicken ideally at least 30 minutes, but also overnight. He also gives us tips on how to use the marinade afterwards (hint: you have to heat it).

Check out the first episode of Athletes in the Kitchen: How to Cook Fish here.

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