I have a lot of people ask how I manage to cook chicken breast meals without shredding the chicken. Well it took me a long time and a lot of disappointing meals to work out how to do it. Boy do I mean A LOT of disappointing meals.
This is what I find work for me:
Preparation
- Make sure you don’t cut your chicken breast pieces too small. Mine are about 2cm x 2cm.
- I occasionally make the Thermomix hot before put the chicken in. If you can, saute onion, garlic etc first then add the chicken in. I don’t always do this but I find it can help as its less time the chicken is being mixed around waiting for heat.
Cooking
- I always cook my chicken using the butterfly attachment. After 5-10 mins I stop the machine and scrape the chicken off the butterfly with the spatula and continue on with the cooking process with the butterfly still in place.
- I cook on reverse and spoon soft generally but have been able to use speed 4 without any shredding. I would recommend using spoon soft or up to speed 2 maximum as a general rule.
- I will sometimes cook the sauce first to boiling point then add the chicken in so that the chicken in submerged in boiling liquid, taking less time to cook and therefore meaning less chance of shredding. Doing it this was means you may only need to cook the chicken for 5 – 10 minutes.
- Thigh has less chance of shredding so you may prefer to use it. We prefer breast so stick to it for recipes.
- You can cook the chicken in the Varoma/steaming attachment and then place into the sauce/meal once almost cooked through. This will generally mean less flavoursome chicken however I find as it hasn’t had as long to absorb the flavours.
Just some of my Chicken recipes:
See recipe index for a full list.
- Asparagus Chicken
- Cathy’s Satay Chicken
- Chicken and Asparagus Risotto
- Chicken and Spinach Pasta
- Chicken and Vegetable Fettuccine
- Chicken, Bacon and Leek Pasta
- Chicken, Bacon and Leek Risotto
- Chicken, Broccoli and Snow Pea Pasta
- Chicken, Mushroom and Bacon Parcels
- Garlic Pepper Chicken
- One Chicken Breast: Two Family Sized Meals!
- Tuscan Chicken and Spinach Pasta
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Thank you so much Peta for this information.. now to try the chicken.. 😉
Going to try this today. Thank you very much!