Brine Chicken In Sweet Tea For Juicier, More Flavorful Chicken

Brine Chicken In Sweet Tea For Juicier, More Flavorful Chicken

Brining is the secret to cooking juicy, flavorful meat. For a twist on the typical salt solution, try using sweet tea. Not only will your birds taste sweet and succulent, they will appear perfectly golden.

Photo by Vox Efx.

The sweet tea brine seems to be especially popular for chicken — grilled and Southern-style fried chicken in particular. But it’s a good brine for most meats, the Times-Herald explains:

It is the perfect way to infuse both moisture and flavour into lean cuts of meat, such as pork, poultry and fish. I was creating brines that reflected flavours from all different types of cuisines and wanted to create an iconic Southern brine. It didn’t take long for sweet iced tea to come to mind. This traditional sweet beverage of the South is perfect for brining. Basically, all you have to do is add salt.
 
When you use this brine, you’ll see that besides delicious chicken, the brine also promotes a beautiful caramelised colour thanks to the sugar and the tea that is absorbed by the chicken.

If you substitute green tea for the black tea and add apricot nectar, the article notes, you get a more exotic tea brine. The possibilities for different flavour combinations to infuse your meats with are probably endless.

Turn sweet tea into a chicken brine [The Newnan Times-Herald]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments