Tips for Cooking Ground Chicken in a Flavorful and Juicy Way

We get it, we’re also fond of a plump, juicy and flavorful grass fed steak. But we needed to clear up a common misconception among meat lovers about chicken. Just because it’s lean with a low fat content does NOT mean that it can’t be prepared into a juicy and flavorful final dish. In fact, once you learn how to properly prepare this lean, low fat protein, it makes an excellent addition to any carnivorous diet and is a great way to keep your caloric and nutrient intake well balanced and your wallet happy.

When it comes to chicken tasting “too dry” ground chicken tends to get a lot of fingers pointed its way. For starters, your experience will be totally different (read: better) if you’re using quality ingredients from pasture raised chickens. Start there. Here are a couple additional tips to keep in mind:

Add more healthy fat to your ground chicken.

As we all know, chicken is low in fat content, which is often one of the best reasons for incorporating it into your diet. Marinating the chicken in a full fat yogurt or canned coconut milk can do it wonders. Depending on what you’re making, you can even add it into the cooking stage. For example, mixing yogurt into a chicken meatball, meatloaf, burger (you get the idea) is a game changer. If you’re not sold on the yogurt or coconut method, consider adding some chopped bacon or mixing your chicken with another ground meat like beef or pork but be sure to keep it at least at an 80-20 ratio so you don’t defeat the purpose of incorporating more lean meat into your diet.

Seasoning is key. Try something new and don’t be shy about it.

It’s a common mistake to under salt chicken, but that’s not the only seasoning to have on hand when preparing this ground delight. Acidic components and umami enhancers are excellent ingredients to add to your ground chicken meals and generally great elements to become familiar with for enhancing your cooking skills overall. This technique is used often in restaurant kitchens all over the world. Vinegar, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, and fish sauce are relatively mild and easy to get at your local grocer, making them the perfect foundation pack for seasoning experimentation.

Heat beyond your comfort zone.

Lastly, cooking your chicken (ground or not) in a way that crisps the outer layer to a darker brown (not burnt) will change the flavor in a delightful fashion. We wouldn’t recommend crisping the entire exterior, when it comes to preparing the ground chicken especially, but simply let the chicken sit in the pan a bit longer on one resting period than all the others. This delivers a wonderful result when combined with the seasoning tips above, particularly when upping the acidity factor.

As far as some of our favorite ground chicken recipes, there are possibly too many to mention. As we said, ground chicken is very versatile so consider using the tips above and swapping this light, lean meat in one of your favorite ground pork, turkey or beef recipes. For example, try chicken burgers, meatballs, or meatloaf. It’s great when mixed with your favorite stir fry ingredients and served with a big salad or added to soups and even does well in the crockpot, too! There are many keto, whole 30 and meal prep advocates who swear by ground chicken and are regularly creating new custom recipes and sharing them through their websites.

Whatever you make, you’ll be starting off on the right foot by using pasture raised chicken. We promise our products will have better nutritional content, flavor, and texture than your big box stores and you can feel safe about the overall quality because we’re people you know (not robots on assembly lines) who are personally monitoring every step of production for safety and cleanliness.

As always, if you have any questions, comments or requests, don’t hesitate to contact us.