Pickle Brine Chicken Breasts - Tender & Juicy Grilled Chicken Using Pickle Juice

Have you ever had a homemade pickle ?

That wasn't as crunchy as you were anticipating .

I know I have and I've made my fair share of them as well .

So today I'm gonna show you how to make a crunchy dill pickle out of cucumbers .

This morning .

I had multiple things going in the , in the kitchen .

I had my second batch of yellow , uh relish yellow squash , relish going .

And before I got that going , I went ahead and sliced all of the cucumbers into spears .

So this is about 8 to £10 of cucumber spears and they've been soaking in cold salt water a good portion of the day .

So I'm gonna start by draining these and then we'll get started making the pickle brine just gonna drain it into the sink .

It came packed with the pickles , you might as well use it .

So we're gonna go ahead and add our pickle juice and we'll go ahead and give that a good stir until that salt and sugar have dissolved .

Only gonna take a minute .

And then once our brine's all set , we're gonna go ahead and submerge two large boneless skinless chicken breasts .

And the only rule here is they have to be submerged in the brine .

And I know I'm kind of pushing it .

I only had a cup and a half of brine , but this is gonna work .

So we'll push those down in and down under and then just to be safe , we'll go ahead and weight that down with a small plate .

But then I realize because of the shape of that plate and the way I put it down there might be air trapped under there .

That's probably because I recently watched a Presiding adventure .

But anyway , I decided to flip it over , like I said , just make sure your chicken is submerged .

And at that point , we're gonna pop that in the fridge for a few hours to brine .

And the rule of thumb I like is about an hour per inch of meat .

So I let my brine for a couple of hours which I figured would be more than enough .

At which point we're gonna pull that out of the fridge , remove our plates and then one very simple but critical , critical step , you must dry these breast off .

In fact , there's an old saying I just made up .

All right , we're just gonna leave those in there for now .

But you can see the pot is full in this pot .

I have two quarts of water and to that , we're gonna add two quarts of white vinegar .

This is a gallon jug .

So I need half of it .

That's good .

Oh , to this mixture , I'm gonna add a cup .

Um Of course , Kosher salt .

You could use pickling salt as well .

I'm gonna say about five minutes per side giving times for grilling is very difficult as you know , but what I like to shoot for is about 1 55 internal temperature , which is a little lower than most safety guidelines .

But you know what , we got plenty of insurance around here .

So I'm gonna say that 1 55 to 1 60 is perfectly safe .

So that's where mine was at right about here when I pulled it off and it's time to head inside to see what we got , but not just yet even chicken breast .

You want to let rest a little bit , especially ones like these that were particularly buxom .

So we're gonna cover that very loosely in foil and let that sit for about three or four minutes and that will give you time to set up your plate or grab another adult beverage or whatever .

And then once we've let that sit for a few minutes , we're gonna go ahead and plate it up .

I serve mine very simply with a salad of little gem lettuce , red onions and santa rosa plums .

And then speaking of keeping things light as far as the sauce , I went with a giant dollop of our famous garlic aioli which I garnished with some diced pickles , you know , because of the whole pickle brine thing .

And that pickle brine chicken breast is ready to evaluate .

So , let's go ahead and cut in here and I don't want to go right for the center .

And I'm gonna add a tablespoon of turmeric .

So you have that nice yellow color that pickles normally have stir that up and I have it sitting on an electric burner here on the countertop .

So I'm gonna go ahead and turn this on high and like any other pickling recipe , we're gonna bring this to a boil .

We're gonna let this come to a boil .

But in the meantime , we're gonna start packing our jars with our pickle spears .

So let me grab some jars and we'll start doing that .

All right , let's put these pickle spears in the jars .

I'm using quart jars .