This chicken tip is a game-changer. We've got 17 more ideas just like ithere.
Weeknight roast chickenis a dinner-table fixture at my house no matter the season. It's the ultimate one-pan dinner and it's so simple to throw together at the last minute: Brown a chicken in an oven-safe skillet on the stovetop, if it's winter add mushrooms and whatever root vegetables are on hand (if it's spring that veg might be new potatoes and asparagus), and finish everything in a 425°F oven for about 45 minutes. The result is chicken with the crispiest skin possible, vegetables cooked into schmaltzy submission, and (if you're cooking for two, like I do) enough leftovers for a righteous chicken salad or stir-fry later in the week.
The only issue? What to do with the leftover chicken skin. Even when reheated as is in a skillet, the skin stays limp and soggy—despite your best efforts to recreate the crisp chicken skin that made your original dinner so great to begin with.
The trick? Remove the skin altogether. (But don't throw it out!) Here's how to reheat your chicken so that the skin gets as crispy as possible the second time around. (And before you ask, yes, this will work with store-bought rotisserie chicken skin too. Need some ideas for the rotisserie chicken meat?Here are a few of our favorites.) Now, onto the re-crisping:
1. Remove the Skin
Start by peeling the skin from the cooked bird—this will be easiest if your chicken has been separated into parts (breast, leg, thigh, etc.), but you can also peel the skin from a whole chicken and tear it into bite-size pieces.
2. Warm a Skillet
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat in a skillet just until warm. You don't want the pan to get too hot or you run the risk of burning the skin before it gets crisp.
3. Pan-Fry the Skin
Toss in the chicken skin in a single layer—you should hear a satisfying sizzle when the pieces hit the oil. Pan-fry each piece for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until golden brown. If one side of your pan is cooking faster than the other, feel free to move the chicken skin around as the pieces cook—you're not trying to sear anything here. Instead you're rendering out the remaining fat and removing any moisture which is what caused that skin to go flabby in the first place. Moving the pieces around will help everything cook more evenly.
4. Remove and Drain Skin
Use tongs or a spatula to transfer the now shatteringly crisp chicken skin pieces to a paper towel–lined plate and let them cool briefly. Like bacon, they'll crisp even further as they cool. Once you can touch them without burning your hands, they're good to go.
5. Don't Forget About the Fat
After crisping the skin, schmaltz (aka that rendered chicken fat I mentioned earlier) will have mixed with the olive oil in your skillet. Take this flavorful opportunity to reheat the leftover chicken meat (or use it to start astir-fryor to sauté vegetables) while the skin cools.
From there, the possibilities are virtually unlimited. Right now, I love to throw together aradicchiosalad with watermelon radishes, parsley, and cooked chicken, topping the whole thing with a mustard vinaigrette and, yeah, crumbled bits of salty, fatty chicken skin. You might prefer scattering them over agrain bowlor thisFilipino rice porridge. Or you could just stand there in your kitchen and eat them all before your housemates know what a good thing you've just done. Really. No one but you needs to know just how delicious leftover chicken skin can really be.
