Tender Salt Crusted Chicken

Salt crusted chicken is a technique of encasing a chicken in a salt crust before baking. The salt crust seals in flavor and juices so the chicken is perfectly tender and juicy when it's done. It's easy to do and a great activity for kids to help with in the kitchen!

Let's be honest. This salt crusted chicken is not one of the prettiest things you'll ever cook. But what it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in taste, tenderness, and fun.

I first heard of this cooking method while I was standing in line to pick up fish through our CSF (that's Community Supported Fishery.) One of the guys in line behind us started talking about how he doesn't have them filet the fish when he picks it up - instead, he takes it home whole, makes some 'wet sand' with salt, piles it on to cover the whole thing, and bakes it for 25 minutes for each inch of thickness.

I thought it sounded like a crazy kitchen experiment...so of course I had to try it. I did it with a fish first, and you can see the salt baked fish method here.

There's a similar technique called salt baked chicken, which has more of an Asian descent. This is a slightly different technique.

How to make salt crusted chicken

Making salt crusted chicken is not as complicated as you might think. Just 3 ingredients, 4 steps, and about 15 minutes of your time and you'l be ready to bake. Salt crusted chicken, here we come!

Step 1: Spatchcock your chicken

If you're not familiar with how to spatchcock a chicken, it's honestly so easy. You take out the giblets, then flip the chicken over, grab a pair of kitchen shears like these, and cut the backbone out.

If you need some detailed step-by-step instructions for your first go at it, this NomNomPaleo post will tell you how!

This is what a fully spatchcocked chicken looks like:

Step 2: Tuck the wings

Once you've gotten it spatchcocked, make sure you grab the wings and tuck them back underneath the breasts.

Step 3: Make your salt crust mixture.

Next, you're going to make your wet sand. This is literally just salt and water.

You may need to adjust your ratios - just add the water a bit at a time until you have the wet sand consistency!

This was 6 cups of salt and 1 ½ cups of water:

Step 4: Salt crust your chicken

Lastly, you just take that big bowl of salt and dump it out on top of the chicken.

Pat it down tight so everything is covered - remember, you're making a "crust." Try to get it so that you can't see anything except the shape of something resembling a chicken covered in salt.

This is a super-fun activity for kids, too - just tell them to bury the chicken!

(See the water starting to pool on the sides? That happens quick, so try to work fast when building your "sand castle.")

You're going to bake the salt crusted chicken for awhile. I know it seems like it should be super tough, but it won't be. It'll be nice and tender.

The salt crust will crack a bit, and the water that pooled on the edges will brown up the salt and cook into a harder crust - that's ok. When you touch the salt, you'll find that it's no longer like sand, and instead is hard as a rock.

Now here's where the "not pretty but super fun" part comes in - you have to break through that salt!

Grab a kitchen mallet, or a knife if you prefer to pry it open through a crack, and start pulling on that salt crust. Eventually, most of it will come off in one big chunk.

Also, your chicken boob skin will probably stick to it. Sorry. I'm a huge fan of crispy chicken skin, but this just isn't one of those recipes. The skin is what keeps the meat from getting super salty while it's cooking - it acts as a barrier, which is exactly what you want.

If you're doing this with kids, give them a mallet and have them smash open their salt "sand castle" that they built earlier. So much fun!

Here's what mine looked like when I broke it open:

Yeah, so, like I said - not super pretty, and chicken boob skin stuck to the salt. BUT.

But, this salt crusted chicken is some of the most tender and juicy chicken you've ever had. For the salt that gets stuck in the cracks, just use a pastry brush to brush that away, or cut the chicken up into pieces and peel the skin off.

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