Recipe: Brined & Oven Baked Chicken

Ready for the easiest chicken cooking method ever?
 

My mom made some sort of chicken recipe for dinner for us one night back when I was still living at home and my dad and I could not stop raving about how delicious the chicken was. We asked her if she had done something different because this chicken was good. She shared the secret with us and I promptly forgot about it.
 

Until the other week.
 

Patrick and I were on a mission to eat a lot of chicken and veggies after our long, over-indulgent Christmas weekend. I made this chicken on Tuesday night that week. And on Wednesday. And Thursday. And it was the method that I used to cook the chicken that we shredded and threw into our Chicken Enchilada Dip for NYE. It might have also been what we had for dinner last night.
 

It's that good.

 

Brined & Oven Baked Chicken

{original recipe found here}
 

Ingredients

1 pack of chicken breasts

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Garlic Powder

Paprika

Red pepper flakes
 

Directions

1. Fill a bowl with 1 quart of warm water and 1/4 cup of salt, stirring until salt is fully dissolved. Add in chicken & let it sit for at least 15 minutes {or up to 6 hours if you refrigerate it}. After brining, place each chicken breast in a baking dish.

2. Brush each side of the chicken breast liberally with olive oil making sure to thoroughly coat each side.

3. Season both sides of the chicken breast with salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

4. Cook in the oven at 450 for 25-30 minutes or until done {160 - 170 degrees with a meat thermometer}

5. Enjoy!
 

I promise, this will be one of your favorite ways to cook chicken.


 

This was the first recipe that I've ever used a meat thermometer on and let me tell you, I'm hooked to it now. I have no idea why it took me so long to get on the meat thermometer wagon but now that I'm here, I'm here to stay. We have one that you can leave in the oven that has a digital reader on the outside - it makes cooking so much easier and takes out all the guess work on whether or not your chicken is done.


 

I'm looking forward to testing out some other seasoning combinations with the brining to see how many different flavors we can get going with this brining & oven baking method.

Any suggestions for what I should try out next?