Gluten-Free Baked Honey Lemon Chicken Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What does adding lemon juice to chicken do? ›

What's the secret to wonderful lemon chicken? Use chicken thighs (or legs, but thighs are easier to eat), bone-in and skin-on. Lemon is acidic and helps balance the stronger flavor of the dark meat in thighs and legs, and the fat from the chicken skin.

The sauce has garlic, thyme and lemon, and has so much flavor," Garten says. "And the whole thing takes like 5 minutes to put together... The best thing about this is that it makes the chicken and the sauce at the same time." Serve it over rice or quinoa, and the grains can absorb all of the sauce, Garten recommends.

If you season your poultry before cooking, the flesh itself will be imbued with the fresh lemon flavor. Applying lemon juice after cooking won't affect the flavor of the meat as much, and will have a harsher and more sour taste because you haven't allowed the acid to permeate through the chicken.

Tender Juicy Chicken: The acidic lemon juice helps break down muscle fibers, making the chicken more tender. The oil and other ingredients help lock in moisture, guaranteeing juicy, flavorful chicken. Flavorful: Lemon and garlic are a classic combo, while mustard adds tang, and red pepper flakes add a subtle kick.

Like pickling, smoking, and curing, the practice of rinsing chicken with lemon juice probably started out as a way to neutralize any off-aromas in the meat and cut down on bacteria.

If you're baking a lemon loaf or citrusy crinkle cookies, you'll get the most concentrated citrus flavor by adding lemon zest to the mix. While lemon juice adds an acidic punch to salad dressings and countless other dishes, lemon zest holds all the fruit's fragrant, floral notes.

Not just any old oatmeal will do when it comes to the Barefoot Contessa. "I've had the same thing for breakfast every single day for ten years: coffee and McCann's quick-cooking Irish oatmeal," Garten told Bon Appétit in a 2017 article. And her love of the stuff is well-documented.

Lemon juice can be used to marinate meat, poultry, and fish.

The acid aids by tenderising the raw meat, thereby permitting the oil and spices to have an effect. Many marinades use vinegar as an acid substitute, but lemon juice is more effective as it also lends a citric flavour.

It can also turn the chicken white and give it a cooked appearance. Cooking the protein with acid is something you want in ceviche, but not chicken. Another alternative is to marinate for 24 hours max without adding the lemon juice until the last 30 to 60 minutes of marination before cooking.

Lemon juice is a great meat tenderizer; the acidity gently breaks down the protein fibers in meat, according to Science Learning Hub. That leaves it scrumptiously fork-tender. “You can simply coat a piece of meat with lemon juice for at least one hour before cooking to improve tenderness,” Rifkin says.