The Brining Mistake That's Ruining Your Fried Chicken

Brining chicken prior to frying is a great way to guarantee both moisture and flavor, thanks to the brine's high salt content. But Brian Cartenuto, chef and owner of New York's Bird Dog and Bird Dog Café, exclusively shared with Daily Meal the common mistake he sees in fried chicken brines: under seasoning. 

It can seem easy to think you're adding too much salt to a brine, but Cartenuto said this is the most common error he sees. It's not, however, one that you'll find in the Southern cuisine served by his kitchens. "I brine all our chicken here at Bird Dog with 12% salt, and we brine for 24 hours," he told us. That's in addition to a blend of other spices and flavorings, by the way. 

Critically, Cartenuto revealed that longer brines require less salt. "If you are going to brine for a longer time (such as 36-48 hours), I would reduce the salt to about 9%-10%," he advised. A proper brine takes a lot of salt, but you can, in fact, overdo it.

There are a lot of good liquids for brining chicken, which Brian Cartenuto says is "the only way to truly impart flavor into the chicken." Instead of buttermilk or pickle juice, the chef likes to keep it simple for the brining liquid. "I always season the water well to get flavor in from the start," he said. "Otherwise, I feel salt and flavor are just layered on top of the chicken."

Brining chicken in water might seem like leaving flavor on the table when there are more culinarily complex liquids at hand, but the crucial benefit to a water brine is that your breading will stay on the chicken better. This is because water brines are the easiest to dry off individual chicken pieces before battering them, unlike another classic standby, buttermilk, which will produce extra-wet pieces.

Dry brining — rubbing the chicken with salt, no liquid — is another option and will guarantee extra crispy skin. But Cartenuto warned that the result isn't as juicy as a wet brine, so he reserves a dry brine for roasting whole chickens – just like Ina Garten.