If there's a way to make chicken taste better than it already does, we’ll do it. Which is why, whenever we've got time, we dry brine chicken with plenty of kosher salt before cooking it—and so should you. Whether you're cooking a whole bird or parts, grilling, roasting or pan-frying, there's just no better way to maximize a bird's deliciousness than this simple trick. What is a dry brine you ask? Well, allow us to explain.
In the scientific community (read: food community), rubbing chicken (or any meat) with salt (and sometimes spices and other aromatics) and letting it sit (prior to cooking), is referred to as a dry brine. (Sorry, that was a lot of parentheses.) But yeah, dry brining achieves the same effect that you would get from a regular "wet" brine in which meats or vegetables or cheeses are soaked in a saltwater solution (again, sometimes with spices and other aromatics) to get flavor and seasoning deep into the food being brined. The difference is that a dry brine does everything that wet brine does but without liquid, which is great for a few reasons. One, it's a hell of a lot less messy—if you've ever tried to find a container to hold a whole chicken and a bunch of saltwater, you know what we're talking about. And two, since moisture is the mortal enemy of crispiness and caramelization, a dry brine keeps the exterior of whatever you're brining, well, dry, facilitating better browning. That’s why we love to dry brine chicken.
Yeah, that's the stuff.
The salt that we use to coat our uncooked chicken draws moisture from the skin. Less moisture, as we mentioned, means quicker crisping. Quicker crisping means tastier, more texturally satisfying chicken. But just one skin drying method seems like settling. We don’t settle. To really take this to the next level, place your salted chicken in the fridge, uncovered, for at least an hour.
You might not think it, but the fridge is actually a very dry environment, and when you leave something in there without a wrap or lid, it will start to dry out immediately. Not so great for, say, that halved onion your roommate placed, unwrapped, on the refrigerator shelf, but great for the skin of our chicken. Even if you leave your salted chicken in the fridge for an hour, it will improve the flavor and texture of the skin dramatically. If you leave it in there for 24 hours, thought, it will change your life. Seriously, you’ll be exploring deep flavor caverns you never knew existed. Paddling down rivers of satisfaction. Climbing mountains of crispy, salty skin. This will be your world. This will be your religion.
These super-flavorful, no-fry chicken wings turn out best when they’re seasoned ahead of time. You can do this as little as 1 hour in advance, but letting them hang out with salt and those spices overnight is a complete game changer.
Keep in mind that we wouldn’t advise going much longer than 24 hours with anything smaller than a turkey, though. We only want to draw moisture from the skin, not the actual meat itself. The layer of fat beneath the skin protects the meat from drying, but it can only do so much. That’s why 24 hours is our sweet spot.
And one final word of wisdom: Under-salting is much more common than over-salting. Don’t be scared. We want more than one tentative pinch scattered across our wings, breasts, or bird. As a general guideline, the higher the ratio of meat to surface area, the more salt it gets. Roasting a whole bird? Go wild with the salt, seasoning every crack and under wings and legs. Doing a batch of chicken wings under the broiler? Pull back on the salt a little bit. But never pull back on the practice. You’re a dry briner now. That’s for life.
