The Best Chicken Breast I've Ever Had...

Say good-bye to bland, rubbery, dry chicken breast forever with this recipe...

For people looking to improve body composition, optimize performance, and build 6-Figure Health for life, one of the most important components of that is your diet.

And one of the most important components of your diet is your protein intake.

Protein intake is so important for many reasons:

1) It contains the building blocks of muscle - amino acids - so if you’re not eating enough, not only will you struggle to build muscle, you’re more likely to lose muscle instead.

2) When trying to lose fat, protein helps keep you fuller, for longer - which leads to fewer cravings and less hunger.

3) Protein has a high thermic effect. You burn more calories digesting protein than you do other foods - meaning you can eat more calories from protein than carbs or fat and still maintain weight.

The problem? A lot of people don’t eat enough protein.

Eating enough protein can be challenging; I won’t argue with that. The typical American diet tends to be low in protein. Just look at 90% of restaurant meals and you’ll see dishes made up of most carbs and fat, with just small amounts of protein.

Or if you are getting a protein-centered dish, it’s often accompanied by carb-and-fat-heavy sides.

But as a coach who’s worked with hundreds of clients over the past decade, I can say confidently that most, if not all, clients pick up eating enough protein rather quickly.

It’s not often eating enough protein that’s the hard part - it’s learning how to eat enough protein.

This process often starts with educating clients on good, high-quality protein sources - and getting them to include more of those in their diet.

A good, high-quality protein source is any food that derives most (75% or more) of its calories from protein. These foods should make up a majority of your protein sources to ensure you can eat enough protein without overeating on carbs or fat.

And one of the best sources of protein?

Chicken breast.

Clocking in around 120 calories, 25g of protein, and just a couple of grams of fat, it’s hard to beat the nutritional profile of chicken breast when you’re looking to maximize protein intake.

Problem is, chicken breast tends to get a bad rap. And often, people leave it as a protein source of last resort because it’s developed a reputation of being hard to prepare juicy and flavorful, without adding in a ton of extra calories through sauces, marinades, etc.

Which, I completely understand. For years I only ate chicken breast when I had to. Or when I had sauces or other ingredients to help supplement the flavor and moisture.

That was, until now.

Because recently I stumbled across one of the best ways to prepare chicken breast to keep it juicy and flavorful, and last week I put it to the test…

The Best Chicken Breast I’ve Ever Had Recipe

Full disclosure: This recipe is for smoked chicken breast, prepared using some sort of smoker.

Smoking meat at lower heat tends to help retain moisture while adding an extra layer of flavor. However, if you don’t have a smoker, you can still prepare your chicken breasts this way, and get really juicy, tasty meat. You just won’t get that additional smoke flavor.

I wish I could take credit for this recipe, but I’m not that smart. I found it on one of my favorite meat-smoking YouTube channels, Mad Scientist BBQ.

The Recipe

1) First, trim your chicken breasts of any excess fat or irregular, thin pieces hanging off. These will dry out a lot faster and won’t taste nearly as good, so just clean up the breast so it’s neat and even.

2) Next you’re going to salt the breasts and let them sit in the fridge for a few hours. I think I did 3 or 4 hours before cooking, but give them at least a few hours salted before cooking. This allows the salt to diffuse into the meat, giving it more flavor and moisture.

3) Next, when you’re ready to cook, season the breasts evenly with coarse ground black pepper. This will help give the chicken a smokey flavor, and if using a smoker, give it a really nice color too. If you’re not using a smoker, you can add some smoked paprika here as well to give the chicken a bit more of that smoke flavor.

4) Now it’s time for the first stage of cooking. Set a smoker, temperature-controlled grill*, or oven** to 200 degrees and cook for about 90 minutes.

5) After 90 minutes, remove the chicken, and wrap each breast individually in foil with a pat or two of butter on top***. This is where you could also add something like minced garlic or other herbs to steam in flavor to the chicken.

6) Return the chicken to the smoker/grill/oven and cook at 275 degrees until the chicken reaches a minimum temp of 155 degrees, but no more than 158-160 degrees.****

7) Let rest in the foil for 5-10 minutes, slice, and enjoy!

Notes:

* If using a standard gas or charcoal grill, use half the grill/burners to bring up to temp, while leaving a cool side of the grip where you can cook the chicken over indirect heat.

** If cooking in the oven, I would use a wire rack to cook the chicken to help keep the skin firmer.

*** The butter adds just enough moisture and flavor to keep the chicken juicy without adding a ton of extra calories. Most of the butter will run off into the foil. You can pour it on after slicing if you want, or just discard to save the calories.

**** This is technically below the USDA cooking recommendations for chicken, but there’s a caveat to that.

The cooking temp for chicken is recommended at 165 degrees. This is the temperature where all organisms in raw meat that can make you sick die off instantaneously. In other words, it’s the ‘better safe than sorry’ cooking temp.

However, at 155 degrees, the meat only needs to be held at that temp for 44 seconds before all organisms die off. The problem with cooking your chicken breast to 165 degrees is often that will eliminate most of the moisture, leaving you with a dry, unappetizing chicken breast.

As long as you cook and hold your chicken breast above 155 for a minute, you will still have chicken breast that’s safe to eat AND extremely juicy. Here’s more info on cooking temps from the USDA if you want to check for yourself.

Then when you’re all done, you’re going to have incredible, juicy, and tasty chicken breast like this…

Do you have a favorite way of making chicken breast? Let me know in the comments.