Poached Chicken Doesn't Have To Be Bland. Here's The Secret

In the canon — really — encyclopedia of ways to cook chicken, poaching doesn't get a lot of love. The technique that produces beautifully moist fish and perfectly runny eggs seems to often be overlooked as a legitimate and delicious way to cook poultry. Too often, at-home cooks take poaching to mean boiling, and short of being a great option for dogs with a tummy ache, boiled chicken ends up bland, texturally odd, and underwhelming. Poaching chicken is a gentler technique. Chicken is bathed in water — barely simmering — between 140 and 180 degrees. Boiling, in contrast, has the water temperature at about 212 degrees. But, regardless of the difference, folks often focus on the end result: wet, tasteless meat that isn't about to be the star of your next dinner plate.

However, by focusing on gentle cooking — true poaching — and relying on using something other than water, poaching may yet become your new favorite way to cook chicken. Home cooks should lean in to using broths, spices, herbs, and other flavor enhancers to get the most out of their poaching adventures. Here are a few ways to ensure your poached chicken isn't bland.

One of the easiest options for adding flavor to your poached chicken is utilizing different broths. Chicken broth is the obvious answer here. It's mild flavor that leans on juice from the chicken plus salt, herbs like thyme and bay, and vegetables like celery, onion, and carrots (depending on the type you're using) can add a more unctuous bite when compared with poaching in water alone. Vegetable and bone broths can also be utilized; really it's about your preference in terms of flavor.

To successfully cook your chicken in broth, Serious Eats recommends starting both your chicken and your broth cold or at least at room temperature. Dropping your chicken into already hot or simmering broth can result in tough and even dry chicken. Let the chicken and broth come up to temperature together, then simmer gently until your poultry is cooked through. Temping is helpful here; you want your chicken at around 155 degrees and the liquid at around the same.

If you feel like you've poached in broth and your chicken is still a bit boring and bland, then you may want to lean more heavily on adding herbs, spices, vegetables, and even some heat. Long-simmering items can have a tendency to lose a bit of flavor, hence their reputation as diet food — not really delicious, satisfying, or "fun" eating. But enhancing the broth or water with a number of different ingredients can take your chicken up a level.

At the same time you add your chicken to the broth, add in chopped garlic, onions or shallots, bay leaves, a sachet of herbs (thyme is especially great here), a halved and peeled carrot, a stalk of celery, and whole black peppercorns. You can even add a few glugs of white wine for a balanced acidity. Depending on the dish you're making (if the chicken is being shredded and added to something else — maybe a chicken salad), you can add other ingredients like lemons, capers, chili peppers, and stronger tasting items for a bigger flavor punch. Bland poached chicken, be gone.