Alex Guarnaschelli's Top Tip On How To Make Chicken Breasts Delicious - Exclusive
Alex Guarnaschelli may be known for her chicken thighs with tomato, but she won't hate on chicken breasts, even when given the chance to. We know because we tested the waters. In a recent exclusive interview for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Tasting Table asked Guarnaschelli point-blank, "Why are thighs better to use than breasts?" — and the Iron Chef and host of the upcoming Food Network competition "Ciao House" refused to take sides. "People love to say that chicken breasts are boring because they have no fat. I honestly love both cuts of chicken," she told us.
There are plenty of reasons to gush about the culinary desirability of chicken thighs. Take "their richness," as the Food Network celebrity proffered, or "a great skin that certainly adds a layer of flavor and heartiness to something acidic like tomato sauce." Guarnaschelli, however, insists that the breasts can be just as good, provided you cook them the right way — namely, using a longer cook time than you might expect.
The trick to a delicious chicken breast is how long you cook it
Don't get her wrong. Alex Guarnaschelli has eaten her fair share of bad breasts. "The boneless, skinless, loveless (often grilled beyond recognition) chicken breast that I have encountered can definitely resemble shoe leather and make you wish you were digging into a basket of fried chicken thighs," she once wrote for People. Perhaps precisely for that reason, the chef admitted that she "gravitates" toward thighs, but that does not mean excluding breasts from her repertoire altogether. "I definitely think a good chicken breast — cooked juicy and not dry — doesn't get enough love," she wrote in the same article.
To the point, how do you turn a mostly fat-less portion of white meat into a "luscious" meal? Feel free to disprove the notion, but if you follow Guarnaschelli's line of cooking reasoning, chicken breasts are not meant to be air-fried, either. In fact, any quick-cook method is probably less than optimal for this cut of white meat. To properly cook a breast, you'll need a little bit of patience and a lot of time. "If you slow-cook chicken breasts and are careful not to overcook them," the celeb chef advised us, breasts are just as good as any other part of the bird.
Want more Alex Guarnaschelli? Check out her new show, "Ciao House," on Food Network, premiering on April 16 at 8 p.m., or check out some of her recipes on FoodNetwork.com or AlexGuarnaschelli.com. And learn more about the South Beach Wine & Food Festival at sobewff.org.