Pickle Brined Chicken

Pickle Brined Chicken

When most people think of cooking from scratch they think of breads, soups etc. However, there many kitchen ingredients that can be made from scratch, saving not only time, but money. Spice mixes can be expensive at the store, but easy and inexpensive to make at home. Plus the taste of homemade spice mixes is fresher and can be the difference between a good and great dish. Later in the week I will share a recipe for homemade chili powder. The amount of heat can be adjusted for families with kids or increased if you like things with a little kick. I also make homemade Greek seasoning and various Indian spice mixes (since it can be hard to find some of them in my area). Homemade spices can last up to 6 months when stored in an airtight container and make throwing together a great meal that much easier. Plus since there are so many recipes available on the internet now making spices from scratch is beyond simple.

On to the recipe! My family is obsessed with pickles. The males in my house could eat pickles three times a day if they had their way. Last week I tried a new recipe for Pickle Brined Chicken from the January 2014 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. 

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes 8 hours and 40 minutes of total time (including brining), 25 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. First, I used two jars of 32 ounce pickles. My store does not stock 64 ounce jars of pickles so I bought two smaller jar instead. I found that the thighs took longer than the suggest oven time to fully cook. The thighs that I bought were on the larger side and took closer to 25 minutes to fully cook. Most of the time I make my recipes gluten free (so that I can enjoy them). However, I did not eat this meal so I used regular all-purpose flour to dredge the chicken. I chose to pour the pan sauce over each serving instead of pouring it over the entire dish as suggest by the original recipe. I prefer serving sauces at the table so each person can chose the amount of sauce they want to eat and it helps to keep the meat tender on the plate. 

Everyone in my house loved this recipe. My oldest son said this was the best chicken recipe I had ever made and eat four pieces of chicken in two days. The leftovers didn't last very long at all since my kids kept going back for more servings over and over again. My husband thought the chicken tasted like a popular chicken restaurant's chicken sandwiches (which is a compliment coming from him). All-in-all a great recipe. 

For the recipe go to Pickle Brined Chicken.