How To Ensure Your Chicken Is Cooked

How To Ensure Your Chicken Is Cooked

Posted on: January 17, 2023



It can be enormously tempting to get that sizzling hot chicken off the smoker or the pan and dig into it. However, unlike other meats that can be consumed medium or rare, chicken cannot.

Not all cooking appliances and equipment in every kitchen are the same as your stovetop, oven, and barbecue as they work slightly differently from each other. Sometimes, cooking and preparing your favorite recipe is a bit of a guessing game, from the right temperature to the final output. This is particularly true with chicken, but the good thing is, there’s now an easy way to determine when your food is ready to be served.

These days, to know if your meat is already cooked, you don’t have to cut into it to check if it’s perfectly or properly done. This was a major hassle back in the day as you had no choice but to waste so much time ensuring things were cooked. Also, you tend to damage a perfect piece of meat because of these unnecessary cuts you make. All thanks to technology, there are food thermometers you can get anywhere to help you.

Chicken is one of the most popular stars of every lunch and dinner because of its versatility and ease of cooking. Knowing when chicken is cooked is important not only for your taste buds but also to your family’s health and safety. The last thing you’d want to happen is ruining your meal with undercooked or overcooked chicken. This is one perk of cooking your own food as you get to ensure the food’s safety.

Attention To Temperature

We at Bradley Smoker understand that chicken is a favorite of every family that needs to cook properly for everyone to enjoy. One of the most common ways to know if your chicken is cooked is by using a meat thermometer. Using Bradley Smoker’s temperature guide through our Bradley tips & tricks, the most desirable temperature for smoking chicken is between 225 to 240 °F (107 to 115 °C).

The suggested temperature for smoking chicken is perfect for getting to where the meat thermometer should be as you measure the cooked chicken’s heat. The safe and sweet pot for chicken is no less than 75 °C or 167 °F, and anything lower is bad.

Aside from using meat thermometers, you can also use your eyes by checking if the juices in the chicken run clear. You can do this by piercing the meat using a fork, and if the liquid pops out clear, it’s most likely cooked to perfection already. Also, you can check the color of the chicken, and the whiteness of the meat will be your standard. This method, however, is not ideal, as mentioned already, especially if it’s for a dinner party.

Other Tips on Smoking Chicken

Take note, though, that some chicken cuts may remain pink in color and not white, even when they’re already cooked. This exception is due to the chicken blood running through its vessels and reaching a certain temperature that gives the meat a pinky-red hue. For this reason, you have to make sure that the temperature you set up is right, whether you are smoking or roasting the chicken.

Time is also a vital element in cooking chicken, as with other meat and food recipes. Try following the temperature guide from Bradley Smoker and always watch the time when you’re cooking. Understandably, the time required for every type of meat and recipe varies on the procedure you use when preparing the meat. For this reason, patience is important to get the best results for your recipe.

Final Thoughts

One of the best and most sought-after ways of preparing chicken is smoking due to the unique taste and aroma it gives to the meat. There are tons of food smokers surfacing left and right in the market today, but one brand has stood out from this sea of selection. This brand is Bradley Smoker.

We offer a variety of products and food smokers, which have continually improved due to the rising popularity of food smoking. Aside from our food smokers, we also offer the Bradley Bisquettes, which give a more improved aroma and flavor to your meat, including chicken.

On our website, you can find insights on everything about meat, food smoking, and cooking as a whole. There are also hundreds of recipes that anyone can do at home. Chicken is one of our specialties as well, and we have a lot of chicken recipes online.

For more great ideas on how to get the most out of your Bradley Smoker, check out the awesome articles on our Bradley Smoker Food Smoking Blog for more tips & tricks.