Chefs reveal how they really get crispy chicken skin
Struggling to achieve shatteringly crisp, golden chicken skin? The secret to irresistibly crunchy chicken often lies in the cut you choose, whether you crave juicy thighs for tacos or a crowdpleasing roast chicken for Sunday lunch.
To uncover the secrets to the crispiest chicken skin, I spoke to Barney Desmazery, Good Food’s longest-serving member and a true chicken-skin connoisseur.
How to get crispy chicken thighs or breast
"My best tip is to weigh your chicken down – some people get a steak press, or you can do it by using another pan or a heavy lid. If you're pan-roasting it, start it in an ovenproof frying pan, skin side down, over really high heat, then press it down so it stays in contact with the pan. Then you put it in the oven, and you roast it – for chicken thighs that's about 25 to 30 minutes – and then you flip it. It's about getting that contact with the hot pan that's going to give you super-crispy skin.
When I'm cooking something like chicken tacos, and I want the skin to be super crispy, that's what I'd do.
As a general rule, moisture or liquid is the enemy of crispiness – you don't want to marinate chicken in anything too wet; you want to keep your marinade dry."
How to get crispy roast chicken
"If you're roasting a whole chicken, you want to salt the chicken up to 24 hours beforehand – this is called dry brining. You want to treat it a bit like a Chinese duck, and you want to put it in the fridge uncovered, preferably sitting on a rack for at least 24 hours, up to 48 hours. This dries the skin out. You then want to put it in a really hot oven to start with – some people say no oil at all, some people say to literally just go with the fat of the chicken. Leave it in a really hot oven for 15 minutes and then turn the oven down. That's how you're going to get really crispy chicken skin.
If, for whatever reason, your chicken skin isn't crispy, what you can do is take the chicken skin off after the chicken cooks, put it on a tray, put it back in the hot oven and then you can get chicken crackling.
My favourite way to get crispy chicken skin
"If we're talking weeknights, I'll use chicken thighs and press them down to make crispy chicken tacos. On the weekend, if I'm roasting the whole chicken, if I'm eating it on Sunday, I'll salt it on Saturday morning and then leave it in the fridge and uncovered."
