The Easy Cooking Method For Effortless Shredded Chicken

Shredded chicken is a versatile food that can be incorporated into numerous tasty dishes — from Mexican-inspired foods like enchiladas, tacos, nachos, and quesadillas to salads, soups, pot pie, and barbecue chicken buns. While often baked in the oven, chicken is actually among several foods that are better when cooked in water. Baking your chicken can dry it out, but poaching it will give you juicy, tender chicken that shreds easily. 

Poaching is an easy cooking method that involves gently cooking your food in liquid like water, stock, milk, butter, broth, or wine. This simple method perfectly cooks delicate foods without risk of overcooking and provides even, consistent results. Unlike sous vide which involves putting food in a vacuum sealed bag before putting it in the water, with poaching, the food is cooked directly in the liquid. Foods that are commonly poached include eggs, seafood like fish and lobster, vegetables like asparagus, leeks, and carrots, stone fruits, and poultry. 

When making shredded chicken, you want chicken that's moist and easy to pull apart, without a thick sear that is difficult to cut through. The gentle, low temperature process of poaching makes it the best method to achieve this. As a bonus, it's super simple to do. Follow a few tips and you'll learn how to easily poach chicken so it tastes good. 

Poaching is a moist heat method of cooking, similar to boiling and simmering except that it uses a lower temperature, typically around 160 to 184 degrees Fahrenheit. The two main poaching methods are deep poaching (fully submerged in liquid) and shallow poaching (partially covered in liquid). 

Whether you deep or shallow poach your chicken largely depends on the size of the cut. If you plan to poach a whole chicken, you'll need to fully submerge it. On the other hand, individual chicken breasts or thighs can be either shallow or deep poached. Shallow poaching is ideal for thinner cuts that you want to avoid overcooking and allows you to turn the liquid into a sauce later on. 

For neutrally flavored shredded chicken that you plan to season later for tacos, enchiladas, etc., poaching it in water is perfectly fine. However, poached chicken doesn't have to be bland. For flavorful shredded chicken for a salad or to eat over rice, try poaching it in a more aromatic liquid, like a court bouillon. A court bouillon (French for "short broth") is a flavorful broth commonly used to poach chicken and fish, typically consisting of water, an acid like wine or vinegar, and aromatics such as herbs and spices. When it's time to shred your chicken, instead of doing it with your hands, consider using a twisting Chicken Shredder Tool that speeds up the process. Or, use meat shredding claws like Gorilla Grip's Stainless Steel Meat Shredding Claws.