What is up you guys? It's Susie from HeyGrillHey.com and
today, I'm taking you back to the basics. We are going to
make a beautiful and simple brine for some smoked chicken
breast. Affordable, simple, delicious. It's going to be a
mainstay on your smoker. Let's do it.
So, here's the deal with chicken breast. They're
affordable. You can make them really flavorful. They're
incredibly versatile and if you're like me, it's something
that is easy to throw on the smoker and feed your family
during a weeknight when you're really busy and then, you can
use the leftovers for anything. So, I love having a simple
recipe on hand that I know will be juicy, I know will have
great flavor and that I can continue to kind of morph into
different meals throughout the week. I also feel like if you
have a for something like simple chicken breast you're
going to get more bang for your buck out of the smoker that you
already bought it doesn't just have to be use for big cuts
like pork shoulders and briskets having easy accessible
weeknight options means that you're going to be using it
even more frequently which I'm 100% all about so let's get to
actually making them I've got four beautiful chicken breast
here they're completely defrosted we're also going to
be treating this chicken breast with a brine. A brine is really
going to help impact both the texture and the flavor of your
chicken breast. They're very lean so there's not fat in
there to keep them super moist as it melts. So adding a brine
is really going to bump up the juiciness factor and also add
some really yummy savory salty notes deep into the meat
itself. So I've got four cups of hot water right here and to
that I'm going to add three tablespoons of kosher salt and
one tablespoon of brown sugar and I'm just going to whisk,
whisk, whisk until that's completely dissolved and then
let it cool.
Now, you really can get crazy with the brines here. You can
add in herbs or some citrus. You could even add in some hot
sauce if you wanted to bring a little bit of heat but I think
just keeping it super simple is the way to go because simple is
the name of the game for these chicken breast. We're just
going to put them into a gallon zip-top bag and I like brining
in bags because I want to be able to press out as much air
as I can so I can keep the brine right up against the
chicken breast themselves and then, we pour in our brine.
Like I said, we want to press out as much air as possible
Put these on a plate or in on like a rimmed baking dish. Pop
these into your refrigerator and let them brine for at least
four hours or this is super simple if you want to prepare
them in the morning. Pop them in your fridge and then they're
ready to cook when you get home from work in the evening. I
wouldn't brine for longer than eight hours but anywhere
between 4 and eight is your sweet spot.
Alright, our chicken breast have been brining for the last
four hours. They're ready to come out of the brine. I've
prepared a baking sheet with a paper towel because I do
want to dry off the excess brine on our chicken breast
before we season.
We simply need to discard our brine one question that I get
pretty regularly is can I reuse a brine and the answer is no
for food safety reasons first of all but second of all the
ratios are no longer the same in the salt to water amounts
when we initially put them in because actually some of the
salt has been taken in by these chicken breast so it wouldn't
be a proper brine after using it the first time so into the
garbage it goes We're going to pat off the top of our chicken
breast. They're nice and dry on all sides. Alright, I'm
going to drizzle both sides of our chicken breast with olive
oil before I season. The olive oil is really going to help
keep the exterior of our chicken breast moist. They do
love to dry out at low temperatures on the smoker and
having that nice little fat barrier will really help. Now,
I'm going to be seasoning these on both sides with my chicken
seasoning. It's absolutely delicious. It's got a lot of
traditional herby flavor with notes of lemon and I know I'll
be able to use it the rest of the week in pastas or soups or
pretty much anything just eating it like cold out of the
bag happens a lot when we have leftovers but you can use
whatever type of chicken seasoning you like. You can
even go with classic salt and pepper if you know you want to
be able to use it in a lot of different ways. Alright, our
oiled and seasoned and brine chicken breast are going on the
smoker at 225 degrees. They'll take about an hour to cook all
of the way through. We're looking for a target internal
temperature about 162 to 163 degrees Fahrenheit. We're not
saucing these with barbecue sauce because like I said, I
want to be able to use them for a ton of things throughout the
week. However, if you do want to baste at the end, I
would start basting about 155 degrees Fahrenheit. Let's talk
about wood choice really quickly. The seasonings that
you choose to put on your chicken breast are just as
vital to the end flavor is the wood that you choose to smoke
it with. Chicken breast is very mild in terms of having its own
flavor profile. So, the wood you choose here really is going
to impact the end flavor of your smoked chicken breast. I
recommend something mild like apple or cherry or alder or
pecan if you want a really mellow smoked flavor. If you
want to amp up the amount of smoke that you're tasting, go
with something more robust like oak or hickory or mesquite.
We're going to let these chicken breast for just a
couple of minutes and let that carry over cooking process
happen. We pulled them off at 162 163 degrees. We want them to
get up to 165 and that's going to happen in the next 5
minutes or so and then we will come back, slice them open, and
I will show you the real visible difference in a truly
delicious brine and smoked chicken breast. It's slicy
time. Now, normally, I would slice these into individual
slices or shingles or cubes based on how I wanted to use
them for leftovers during the week but tonight, we're just
going to taste one of them. Oh my gosh. These are so
beautiful. You're going to have to come in tight to get the
visual here but you can actually see that lovely light
pink smoke ring around the outside. We're using a
thermometer so we know these chicken breast are cooked the
correct internal temperature. The pink is not from underdone
chicken. It is from Smoke. The chemical reaction that occurs
when meat has been in the smoker and this juice level is
off the charts. It is so shiny. It's dripping down my fingers.
This is a delectable, juicy chicken breast right here. Look
at that. I got juice running down my wrist. I can't even
slice it. We'll get a nice little slice of this guy so
that I can give it a try. Beautiful. Absolutely. Look at.
Even this one little piece is dripping with moisture.
And that my friends is textbook Perfect Smoked Chicken Breast.
Nothing about this is dry. Nothing about this is bland. It
is the epitome of flavor. The seasoning itself is bomb with
all of the herbs and the garlic and the salt and the pepper.
It's delicious but the star of the show truly is the brine and
the smoke. It's flavorful all the way throughout. The whole
chicken breast has flavor and it is incredibly juicy. So, now
that you know exactly how to make the perfect and juicy
smoked chicken breast at home. I hope you guys give this
recipe a try. If you do, take a photo post it on social media.
Use the #HeyGrillHey and that way I can cheer you on on your
journey to becoming a backyard barbecue hero. Now, I'm
going to slice the rest of this up, get it packaged, and
prepared to use in leftovers the rest of this week.
Before we shut this video down, Todd has to give it a try.
That's impressive, man. I'm so used to like having dried
chicken breast but I typically don't like it. It was
incredible. Also, I told Todd I was doing a chicken breast
video and he was like, that is not exciting. That is not fun.
Is it exciting and fun now? Oh, yeah. I take it back.
Sometimes, the basics are incredibly important. Yes.