Why YSK: consuming too much sodium can lead to high blood pressure, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke. In my country (USA), the average daily sodium intake is over 3,300mg, exceeding the recommended maximum of 2,300mg. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends an even lower maximum of 2,000mg.
Also: with the rising cost of food, being mindful of additives that increase sell weight is important.
True, but you can salt or brine the chicken yourself instead of paying more for it.
You can buy whole chicken thighs and debone them, or you can buy deboned chicken thighs. Not everyone wants to do the extra work.
Also true, but salting it leaves a much dryer, crappier chicken. Brining one works great, but I’d much rather get one already brined vs having to brine one myself like 6 hours before I want to start cooking it. That’s a lot of time and a lot of salt I’ll only use once before dumping.
Salting only draws moisture out of the outermost layer of skin and meat, which improves browning and crisping. It won’t affect the interior. The best way to reduce moisture loss in the meat is to spatchcock it so it cooks faster and more evenly.
I only spoke of salting in comparison to using a brine. There is no cooking method that doesn’t leave you with a more moist cooked piece of meat if the meat was brined beforehand. Spatchcocking is great. It’s better in combination with brined bird. Same with rotisserie, which I generally prefer over spatchcocking.
There’s a lot of great cooking methods, but starting with more moisture trapped in the protein always means there’s more moisture left after cooking.
Well agree to disagree then, I don’t see the point of cooking a whole chicken at home if I’m not getting crispy skin.
What? Why on earth do you think a brined chicken can’t give you crispy skin?
You can definitely still get it crispy but because it’s retaining moisture, It’ll never get as crispy as a dry brined chicken. I spatchcock my chickens and cover in a mixture of salt and baking powder, then leave it in the fridge uncovered overnight to dry the skin out. Then I poke some holes in the fat deposits to let the fat render out, bake it at about 400F, brush it once or twice with the rendered fat from the pan until done. Crispy skin, moist meat, can’t beat it.