I have read a lot about how tender and juicy brining makes turkey, pork, chicken, etc. so I am currently attempting to brine a boneless chicken breast. I have found a-lot of different methods for brining boneless chicken, but they all differ in ingredients and time. I decided to do a basic brine (water, salt, and sugar), but I have no idea how long to brine it for. Some people say 30 minutes and some people say it's okay to brine for 4 hours to overnight.
Any advice on how long to brine boneless chicken for would be great!
Best Answer
It depends upon the strength of your brine, for boneless chicken breasts I recommend a 5% brine for 30 minutes to an hour.
Ideally, salt for brining should be measured by weight, especially since volumetric measurements for the same weight of salt will vary depending upon the coarseness of the salt. A 5% salt solution means you should use 20 times by weight the amount of water to salt. That's easy and foolproof if you have a scale. If you must use spoons or cups to measure salt, Morton's Kosher salt is very close to two tablespoons equaling an ounce, so 20 ounces (2.5 cups) of water to 2 Tablespoons of Morton's Kosher Salt would be a 5% solution. Use about 65% of the volume measurement if you must use table salt and measure by volume.
Incidentally, for larger, bone in pieces brine in a 5% solution for 3-5 hours, a whole chicken for 12-16 hours (roughly).
Also, be sure that your chicken does not have water added, as many frozen, bulk pieces do. In effect, those chicken pieces are already brined.