How to cook tough chicken so it's soft. How and how much to cook homemade chicken? How to cook homemade chicken in the oven

In the article you can find a recipe for cooking chicken so that it is juicy and tasty. We cook at home in a hurry and for any occasion, including weddings, birthdays, New Years and other holidays.

How to make chicken more juicy in a slow cooker

One of the preparation options will require the following components:

  1. A kilogram of chicken breast;
  2. 100 grams of sour cream;
  3. A little pepper and salt, seasonings;
  4. Cheese in the desired amount.

First, it is washed, dried and peeled. Now rub each side with any spices and add salt mixed with pepper. The prepared chicken is added to the multicooker bowl, poured with sour cream and turned on for thirty minutes on the frying mode. When the time is up, you can sprinkle with crumbled cheese and bake for a couple more minutes. Vegetables are added if desired.

How to make chicken tasty and soft in the sleeve

The recipe calls for the following ingredients:

  1. Chicken carcass;
  2. A kilogram of potatoes;
  3. 300 grams of carrots;
  4. Two bell peppers;
  5. 500 grams of sour cream;
  6. Zucchini and spices.

Cooking chicken in the sleeve begins with sour cream mixed with spices. Cut pre-washed and peeled vegetables into slices, then mix with the prepared mixture so that there is enough for complete coating. The bird is placed in a baking sleeve, where you add vegetables and seal on the sides, not forgetting to make holes with a toothpick to allow steam to escape. Cooking temperature is 190 - 200 degrees for 1 hour, but here adjustments are made to the size of the whole chicken.

How to cook juicy whole chicken in an air fryer

First, defrosting, washing and drying is done. Now you need to make the desired sauce, which you can use to coat the prepared leg or the whole bird. You can add mayonnaise, salt, a little garlic or something else to it. When coating is completed, send the workpiece to infuse in the refrigerator for thirty minutes. All that remains is to cook in the air fryer on the standard mode.

How to Make Homemade Chicken Soft and Juicy in the Oven

In this case, you can use a special cooking sleeve. Something tasty is added to the meat, for example, potatoes or vegetables. It’s tastier to make fillet with potatoes.

Ingredients:

  1. Chicken;
  2. Garlic 4 cloves;
  3. One bow;
  4. A couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise and ketchup;
  5. Salt and pepper, spices;
  6. Potato.

The ham is cleaned, washed and dried. Cut the onion into small pieces and grind in a blender. Mix ketchup with mayonnaise, onion and garlic, then apply the finished marinade to the chicken and add spices. For marinating, use film and do the procedure for an hour. Cut the potatoes into smaller pieces and put them in a sleeve, then add everything to the sleeve and tie it on the sides, put it on a baking sheet in the oven for an hour and a half at a temperature of two hundred degrees.

How to cook juicy chicken in a frying pan with a golden crust

It is important to make the marinade and breading. If you pre-marinate, for example, 5-6 hours before cooking, the meat will be juicy and tastier than usual. During breading, it must be peppered and salted, then rolled in flour and can be fried. For a golden and crispy crust, dip in flour, then in an egg, where milk and milk are present, but in a small volume. It's worth adding a little dark greenery.

How to make chicken juicy when baking, chicken meat

The recipe has already been described previously, but it is worth pointing out how to achieve softness and juiciness. Take the chicken and rub it with salt, after which it is sent to a bowl and covered with cling film and in the refrigerator for 1-2 days, no more.

How to make juicy chicken in the microwave, foil, steamer

To cook at home you will need one and a half kilos of chicken, half a teaspoon of regular salt, one onion, a quarter tsp. pepper, a spoonful of soy sauce, one hundred grams of bacon, a little lemon juice, eighty grams of dry sherry and a tablespoon of flour.

To begin with, chop the onion, as well as the bacon, and cut it so that the thin edges are in the middle of the dish. Now sprinkle with salt and pepper, add the onion and bacon to the sherry, add soy sauce, lemon and add flour. Everything is covered with special wax paper and set to cook for fifteen minutes. Similarly, you can make grilled chicken and baked breast juicy.

But with the right approach, many hearty and tasty dishes are obtained from rural natural products: broth with noodles, jellied meat, chakhokhbili, and so on. Very tasty homemade chicken stew. If you pre-marinate it, the meat turns out amazing, very tender, and compares favorably in its taste with store-bought broiler. Today we will talk about how to cook homemade chicken soft and juicy.

Total cooking time: 3 hours + 2 hours marinating / Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

  • domestic chicken - 1.5 kg
  • salt - 1.5-2 tsp.
  • a mixture of ground peppers - 2-3 chips.
  • lemon - 0.5 pcs.
  • large onion - 1 pc.
  • parsley - 0.5 bunch.
  • bay leaf - 1 pc.
  • hot water - 2-2.5 l

Preparation

    To begin with, I held the chicken over the fire, removed the remaining feathers, washed and dried. Then she cut the carcass into portions, cutting along the joints. This time I decided to leave the legs intact. If the bird is “at a serious age,” then you can lightly beat off the pieces or make deep punctures in them with a knife.

    Transfer the meat to a deep bowl, sprinkling the pieces with salt and ground pepper. I squeezed half a lemon in there. Peeled the onion and cut it into thin half rings, squeezed it forcefully into a bowl with the chicken to release as much juice as possible. I left the bird in this form to marinate for 2 hours in the refrigerator (can be overnight). The acids contained in lemon and onion will slightly soften the meat fibers, and the chicken will become more tender.

    After the specified time, I fried the chicken to seal the meat juices inside each piece. The meat was fried in portions, in a very hot, always dry frying pan for about 3-4 minutes on each side, without a lid, on maximum heat.

    Then, in the same frying pan, the onions, which were used for pickling, were sautéed in the melted fat.

    Place the browned chicken and onion (without fat, you can drain it) into a saucepan with a thick bottom. I added bay leaf and parsley, tied with a thread to make it easier to remove them from the finished broth. I poured boiling water so that the liquid covered the contents of the pan by 2-3 centimeters.

    Bring to a boil, skim off the foam and simmer for 2 hours. The heat must be medium throughout the cooking time, otherwise the meat simply will not cook properly. If after the specified time the meat is still tough, then you have got a very old chicken; you will have to simmer it for an additional 1 hour - usually this time is more than enough for it to become soft and tender. If necessary, you can add hot water. In the last hour of cooking, you can add peeled and coarsely chopped potatoes to the pan, then you will immediately have a side dish. It is most convenient to check readiness with a fork; if the meat easily comes away from the bone and is divided into fibers, then you can remove the pan from the heat.

Chicken stewed in its own juices in a pan turns out aromatic, soft and juicy. During the cooking process, a lot of fat will melt and float to the surface of the broth; it can be carefully removed with a spoon, scooping out only the top layer. Using the remaining broth, you can cook a very tasty noodle soup or simply serve it with a boiled egg, herbs and croutons. Bon appetit!

Chicken meat is one of the most popular in the world today. Considering the high cost of red meat, as well as numerous reports from scientists that beef, pork and other similar types of meat are harmful to health and even very seriously increase the incidence of cancer in humans, we can say with confidence: chicken is at the top of popularity, and quite deservedly. It has high protein content, is healthier and also versatile. You can prepare a huge variety of dishes from chicken, and the meat itself can be made according to a large number of unique recipes. However, the question is what kind of chicken you buy.

The fact is that stores most often sell chicken meat obtained from factories where the birds spend their entire lives in cages, sitting in the same place. Due to this, they become overgrown with meat, which is then sold profitably. But in this article we will talk about domestic chicken. This is a completely different type of bird that requires a special approach. Very often you can read questions online about what to cook from homemade chicken. Many people believe that its meat is too tough, so they immediately refuse to have anything to do with this bird at all. You shouldn't act so radically. In this article, you will learn about the best way to choose homemade chicken, how it differs from factory-made chicken, how to prepare it, and what to cook from homemade chicken. Thus, if you read this article, you will have an idea of ​​​​what you should do if you get your hands on home-made chicken, rather than factory-made chicken.

Domestic chicken: what does it mean?

So, it is necessary to assume that not all readers are experienced cooks, so it is worth starting with the basics. This means that this will not immediately tell you what to cook with homemade chicken. Rather, you will find out what domestic chicken is, because many people, before reading this article, had no idea that chicken meat could be divided according to a similar principle. So, a domestic chicken is a bird that grew up on a farm or on someone’s farm. This means that she moved freely, ate natural food, and led a full life until, for one reason or another, she was slaughtered for meat. Accordingly, you should not be afraid of such a product, since in general it is a completely normal alternative to regular store-bought chicken. That is why this article will consider what to cook from homemade chicken, since, despite the widespread belief that the meat of such chicken is not suitable for cooking, as it is too tough, it can still be cooked, and more than successfully. But first of all, it is worth addressing the issue of hardness and softness of meat.

Laying hens

If you are thinking about how to cook delicious homemade chicken, everything will depend on what type of chicken you have. The fact is that all these birds are divided into laying hens and broilers. Laying hens are those chickens that are used on the farm to lay eggs. They often live much longer than everyone else, because they do not lose the ability to lay eggs for a long time, and no one is interested in their meat. Yes, if you get your hands on a laying hen carcass, then with almost one hundred percent probability you can say that its meat will be tough, so you may experience certain difficulties in cooking it. And the question of how to deliciously cook homemade chicken will be quite difficult to answer, but still possible. What about domestic broilers?

Broilers

When it comes to what can be prepared from homemade chicken, most often we are talking about broilers, because, despite the fact that they grew up in free conditions, they have much more pleasant meat. That is why, if you have the opportunity to choose what kind of homemade chicken to cook, you should definitely choose a broiler rather than a laying hen. How to distinguish them from each other? This will be discussed a little later, when the question of how to cook homemade chicken so that it is soft will be considered in more detail. In the meantime, it’s worth considering in detail the difference between domestic and factory-farmed birds.

What is the difference between homemade chicken and factory chicken?

Many people believe that domestic chicken is almost poisonous, so they refuse to either cook or eat it. You should not listen to such statements, because they only mislead you. It’s better to think about how to make pilaf from homemade chicken or how to make other delicious dishes from meat that is considered unsuitable for use. You can rest assured, because homemade chicken is practically no worse than factory chicken, and in some aspects even better. If you don’t believe me, then you should find out certain details about both methods of raising these birds. Factory-bred chickens are raised in large quantities in cramped cages where they cannot move, resulting in a maximum volume of meat compared to poultry. Moreover, in advanced factories, birds can be fed hormones so that the meat grows even faster. Given the far from pleasant living conditions, such chickens are susceptible to a wide variety of diseases, so in most cases they are constantly fed antibiotics, and this naturally affects their body, that is, their meat, which you then eat.

If you take domestic chickens, they spend their entire lives as full-fledged birds. They walk on lawns, eat natural food, which makes their meat much healthier and also low in calories (due to the huge difference between constantly being in one place in the cage and constantly moving in the fresh air). Thus, domestic chickens are practically dietary, especially when compared with factory chickens. So if you are asked how to cook homemade chicken stew from a private backyard, you should clarify that homemade chicken is in no way inferior to factory-made chicken, and therefore deserves a fully tasty recipe.

Cooking rules

If you want to learn how to cook homemade chicken, recipes with photos are not always the best help. The fact is that homemade chicken recipes are no different from the recipes you use for factory-made store-bought chicken. The main differences are in how exactly you prepare the bird. That is why in this article you will find the key rules for preparing this type of meat, which will allow you to achieve an ideal result, which will be extremely difficult to distinguish from store-bought meat. Moreover, do not forget that homemade chicken meat has an equally impressive taste, so get ready for a new unforgettable experience.

Bird age

This is not a big secret, but if you didn't already know it, then you should remember that chickens in factories do not live to see a year and in most cases are sent for meat at the age of six months to a year. The same applies to poultry, if you want to get a quality product from them. What is the reason? Here it’s worth returning to the most common opinion that domestic chickens have tough meat. The fact is that the meat is tough not in domestic chickens, but in those birds that are more than a year old. Accordingly, you need to focus on purchasing those birds that are not yet twelve months old. And if in the case of factory-farmed birds you definitely will not make a mistake, since all the chickens there are younger than a year, then in the case of poultry you need to be careful.

Blue skin

Another rule that you should always follow is directly related to the previous one. You already know that meat can be tough in birds that live for more than a year, and most often in laying hens that lay eggs for several years. Naturally, when such a bird dies or stops laying eggs, they do not want to throw it away, but prefer to sell it. You should not go on a whim and buy such a bird for the reason that it is cheaper. Look carefully at the skin of the chicken you want to buy. If she is bluish, refuse to buy, as this is a laying hen whose meat will be very dry. Broilers under the age of one year are most often distinguished by a yellow-white skin, so you can focus on this color when purchasing domestic chickens.

Boiling chicken

Well, now you know almost everything there is to know about homemade chicken, so it's time to move on to the preparation. How to cook delicious homemade chicken? Recipes can be very diverse, but first you need to determine what kind of chicken you have on hand. What to do if you end up with a laying hen or a bird that is more than a year old? Don’t get upset and throw it away, as the situation can still be saved. To do this, you will need to be patient and boil this chicken for at least two hours. Then its meat will soften significantly, and you can use it to prepare the dish that interests you most.

Cooking in the oven

Now it’s time to look specifically at what you can make from homemade chicken. As mentioned above, it is not much different from the factory one, with the exception of tougher meat, so you can choose any recipes that you like. But to get the perfect result, you can use the recipes that will be presented in this article. But first of all, it’s worth telling you exactly how to cook such chicken. The fact is that some people like to fry poultry, while others prefer to boil or stew it. But if you get homemade chicken, you'd better opt for the oven. How to cook tender homemade chicken in the oven? To do this, it is best for you to use a special “sleeve”, which will allow the meat to become juicier, retain all the moisture without releasing it into the space, so the meat will not dry out. If it's a homemade chicken, it's also a good idea to make slits in the chicken and put pieces of butter in there for an even more impressive result. Pay attention to the wings and legs, as you'll need to bake this chicken longer, and if you don't want those parts to spoil from being in the oven for too long, you'll want to wrap them in foil.

Dish in the sleeve

How to cook homemade chicken in the oven so that you get a complete and delicious dish? To do this, it is recommended to cook it with a side dish, that is, put potatoes, carrots, onions and other similar ingredients that interest you in the sleeve, then brush the chicken with your favorite marinade and put it in the sleeve with the vegetables. Tie the sleeve tightly, put it all on a baking sheet and put it in the oven for an hour and a half.

Chicken with rice

Another interesting recipe for preparing homemade chicken is a kind of dish with rice, which, with some amendments, can be called pilaf. To do this, you need to boil the rice until half cooked, add vegetables and herbs to it. After this, completely boil the chicken meat, cutting it into pieces of the size that suits you best. Place all this in the form, if desired, pour over the sauce for juiciness and sprinkle with cheese, and then put in the oven for twenty minutes.

Chicken with apples

Well, another recipe worth mentioning will teach you how to properly cook homemade chicken in a sleeveless oven. To do this, you need to flatten the carcass as much as possible, spread it with marinade or seasonings, and then put it in the oven for an hour and a half. But at the same time, periodically remove the chicken from the oven and pour the prepared broth over it. The broth will add tenderness to the meat and also guarantee a golden crust. It is also recommended to place apples on a baking sheet so that they are baked along with the chicken, and then you will have a complete meal ready.

The only thing that unites homemade chicken and store-bought chicken is the name. Neither the taste, nor the color, nor the aroma, have any similarity. For me, store-bought chicken only has the advantage of cooking time and the value of the breast, which I often use for salads or chops.

Many people think that homemade chicken has tough and not tasty meat - but this is how to cook...

I suggest baking homemade chicken in the oven and truly enjoying the aromatic, juicy, tender and incredibly tasty chicken meat. In order not to bother too much with the side dish, you can cook vegetables along with the chicken. They will absorb the juice and aroma of tangerine, rendered chicken fat, and become soft, satisfying and juicy.

To prepare homemade oven-baked chicken, prepare the ingredients according to the list.

Wash the chicken thoroughly and remove any remaining feathers.

Cut along the breast and spread out. Wash the inside well again, remove the lungs, leave the existing fat, it will be needed for the juiciness and aroma of the dish.

Combine salt, spices and crushed garlic. Rub the chicken well on both sides with this mixture.

Peel all vegetables and tangerines: peel the pumpkin and remove seeds, cut the pepper and remove the stalk and seeds, remove the white fibers from the tangerine and divide it into slices.

Cut all vegetables into small cubes.

Add salt, season with spices and mix.

Cut the baking sleeve to the desired size and tie it on one side. Place all the cooked vegetables inside.

Place chicken on top. Tie the other side and place in the oven.

Bake for 1.5 hours at 180 degrees.

Carefully remove the baking sheet and cut the sleeve.

Cut homemade chicken baked in the oven into portions and serve hot along with juicy, tender, aromatic vegetables.

Bon appetit. Cook with love.

How to cook homemade chicken so that it is tender in the oven? Do I need to pre-boil it to get juicy meat? What ingredients go well with country bird? We answer the most common questions about their homemade chicken dishes. And we write down recipes for delicious poultry cooked in the oven.

Domestic chicken has tough meat. In any case, many housewives think so. And they are mistaken, since not all birds raised in the countryside are not suitable for preparing gourmet dishes. There are different breeds, which are conventionally divided into layers and broilers. So, laying hens, and especially older ones, have really tough meat. But in broilers, and even those raised “on free bread”, it has an amazingly delicate and rich taste.

Subtleties of cooking poultry meat

Juicy chicken in the oven will come from a broiler carcass. It is distinguished by a rounded chest and large hips. It is ideal to choose fresh meat - its skin will be white with yellowish tint, and the protruding fat will be ideal white.

By the way, you shouldn’t expect high fat content from poultry. Due to the fact that she is raised in the wild, walking around the yard or in an enclosure, she does not have time to gain fat. Unlike broilers raised in poultry farms, where they sit around all their lives, without any physical activity. Therefore, poultry dishes can be considered dietary - they contain fewer calories than broilers from the supermarket.

To make homemade chicken in the oven perfectly tasty, follow these rules.

  • The bird must be no more than a year old. Older chickens have tough meat, regardless of breed. There is no need to clarify “how old the bird was” from the seller. Just weigh the carcass and refuse to purchase if it weighs more than 1.5 kg.
  • Do not buy birds with bluish skin. It distinguishes a breed of laying hens that is not intended for cooking.
  • If you end up with a laying hen or an old bird, you should first boil it for 2 hours and only then bake it. Then the dish will turn out juicy.
  • The right solution for how to bake chicken in the oven so that it is juicy is to use a cooking sleeve. In it, the meat is cooked, as in a pressure cooker, boiling in its own juice. The intensity of cooking in the sleeve is higher than in a glass form under a lid. You can also bake in foil, but make sure that there are no holes in it. Otherwise, the juice will leak out and the bird will remain dry.


Before baking the carcass, make cuts in the breast and place pieces of butter in them. Thanks to it, lean breast will become more juicy. Either insert the wings into the “pockets” on the breast, or wrap them in foil, shiny side out. During the baking process, these thin parts tend to burn while the thighs and breasts cook.

Cooking chicken in the sleeve

So, let's find out how to cook homemade chicken in the oven using a cooking sleeve. Along with the meat, you can add potatoes or other vegetables, such as tomatoes, onions, zucchini, zucchini, and cauliflower. A carcass cooked with vegetables will acquire a more interesting taste. And you will receive a complete dish for dinner, with a ready-made side dish.


You will need:
  • chicken - 1 carcass;
  • garlic - 4 cloves;
  • onion - 1 head;
  • mayonnaise - 2 tbsp. spoons;
  • ketchup - 2 tbsp. spoons;
  • salt and spices;
  • potatoes or other vegetables - optional.
Preparation
  1. Rinse, remove feathers, and dry the chicken carcass.
  2. Cut the onion into small pieces, pass the garlic through a press.
  3. Mix mayonnaise and ketchup (or tomato paste) with garlic and onion. Coat the carcass with this marinade and sprinkle with spices.
  4. Marinate for 1 hour under film.
  5. Prepare vegetables (potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes), cut into cubes and place in a sleeve.
  6. Place the chicken on a bed of vegetables and tie the sleeve.
  7. Place the bag on a baking sheet. Place in a preheated oven for 1.5 hours, bake at 200°.

Dishes for celebrations and for every day

Country chicken in the oven is suitable for everyday diet and for holidays. In the first case, you can cook it with a cereal side dish, for example, rice or buckwheat. In the second, we offer a more refined dish - baked chicken with original sauce.

You can make a sauce from the juice that is released when the bird is roasted. Boil 350 ml of white wine in a saucepan, add pepper and salt, leave for 5 minutes. Add the juice from the chicken stewed in the sleeve and boil again. Separately, boil 200 ml of water, add 2 tablespoons of sugar and lemon juice into it, stir until dissolved. Add 250 grams of gooseberries or other sour berries, boil, and grind through a sieve. Add the mixture to a mixture of white wine and meat juice, stir, serve with chicken.

With rice for the whole family

This recipe for juicy chicken in the oven is suitable even for old birds with tough meat. The dish turns out to be satisfying, with a crumbly side dish, and is also suitable for a children's table.


You will need:
  • rice - 100 g;
  • chicken - 1 carcass;
  • onions and carrots - 1 root vegetable each;
  • flour - 3 tbsp. spoons;
  • butter - 3 tbsp. spoons;
  • chicken broth - 200 ml;
  • mayonnaise - 100 g;
  • hard cheese - 100 g.
Preparation
  1. Wash and boil the rice until half cooked.
  2. Chop the onion and carrots, fry, mix with rice.
  3. Boil the bird carcass, cut into pieces.
  4. Fry the flour, add butter, dilute with broth. When the mixture boils, add mayonnaise.
  5. Place rice with vegetables, chicken meat in the form, pour over the sauce.
  6. Sprinkle with cheese and place in the oven. Bake at 200° for 20 minutes.

With apples - for the holiday

A good recipe for baking homemade chicken in the oven and getting an original dish for a family celebration.


You will need:
  • chicken - 1 carcass;
  • apples - 2 large;
  • garlic - 3 cloves;
  • broth - 200 ml;
  • salt and pepper;
  • spices - to your taste.
Preparation
  1. Cut the carcass and “spread” it on the cutting table. This way it will bake faster.
  2. Rub with spices, salt, garlic inside and outside.
  3. Cut the apples into slices, place on a baking sheet, add broth.
  4. Place the carcass skin side up.
  5. Place in the oven for 1.5 hours. By pouring broth over the carcass, you will get a beautiful crust.

Now you know how to make chicken juicy in the oven, even if it is poultry. Try making it for your family!