Baked chicken question about skin on or off.

Someone asked me a cooking question about chicken, basically wondering if skinless and boneless chicken breast would bake in the same time as skin-on chicken. She wanted to know oif the breast would get dry as opposed to bone-in thighs for example. She is using a prepared seasonings, with some chicken broth (I don't really know what she'll be using that for) and fresh vegetables.

Well, if you are following a recipe for roasting skin-on thighs, then YES a chicken breast will cook much faster and tend to dry out because there is no skin or sear to lock in the juices. Although roasting a breast is okay, it's not the preferred method for that cut. You really want to have the chicken skin protecting the meat from the intense oven heat. That actually helps keep the meat more moist as well as adding flavor.

What you can do is cook your veggies separately and add the chicken breast in the oven later, but only to finish it off. I strongly suggest you sauté the breast to sear the outside, and then let it finish in the oven. A chicken breast cooked this way will only take 8-10 minutes.

Chicken thighs, because of the dense dark meat, will probably take 3 times as long, which is why you cannot simply substitute a breast in such a recipe. Totally different texture and flavors there. Watch one of my video below here which shows exactly how to handle this process, and you'll see how quick the breast cooks.

When I bake chicken I often do it in the flavorwave oven, and you can even do it from frozen if you have to. Here is a baked chicken recipe I recently did.

Baked chicken breast stuffed with spinach and asiago cheese.
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