How To Make Chicken Jerky - Start To Finish

I'm gonna be making some jerky but not beef jerky today I'm gonna be making chicken jerky [Music] so what I have here are three boneless skinless chicken breasts probably somewhere between a pound and three quarters and two pounds these have been in the freezer for about 30 minutes just to give them a little more body make them a little firm so we can slice them easier all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start slicing and try to make thin strips doesn't matter how wide they are it's how thin or thick they are I'm going for somewhere around 1/4 inch thick and if you're slicing partially frozen meat remember that first time you press and it's gonna feel like your knife is dull it's not it's just getting through those frozen muscle fibers and when you get down to the end there you need to go ahead and turn it if some of the pieces end up being a little thicker that's fine they're all gonna get dried out nicely I'm gonna go ahead and finish slicing these up and then we'll get them into the marinade so my chicken pieces are in this bowl and now we're just gonna add our marinade and get these seasoning because they're gonna season overnight we're not gonna be smoking these until tomorrow first ingredient is about half a cup soy sauce two tablespoons of lime juice that's the juice of maybe one good-sized lime a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning you can use any seasoning you want here this is my homemade Cajun seasoning and a tablespoon of cracked black pepper now we just get dirty here make sure everybody gets coated here especially in all that pepper that's in there a lot of the liquids gonna come off after this is done marinating overnight will dry these off before they go in the smoker so you want to give it a chance to penetrate and those surface seasonings like the black pepper like the Cajun seasoning you want to stick there so get everybody coated that's where gloves come in handy all right that looks good I'm gonna transfer this to a ziplock bag get it in the refrigerator and I'll see you back here tomorrow all right our chicken has marinated overnight and if you'll notice there's not a lot of leftover liquid on it I dumped it straight from the bag into this container and there's not a lot of you know soupy marinade left so if you use just the right amount of marinade you don't end up having to dry it off as much in this I'm really not going to have to Pat these dry at all I don't think so let's go ahead and start getting them on our racks I'm just gonna try and space them here so they have some air around them help them dry probably be using two racks today to hold all these if they have to touch just a tiny bit that's all right they will shrink up but you want to try and keep them spread out if possible [Music] some of these little ones here these edge spaces that's a little chunky one right there he might fall through we'll see let's get our second rack just let it rest right on top here if at this point you wanted to add any other seasonings like some red pepper flakes or some more cracked black pepper this would be the perfect time to do it to sprinkle it on these chicken pieces but for me these are just right all right there we go let's get them out to the smoker all right our smoker is up to temp right here the target temp for the first portion of this turkey making is 225 degrees I'll explain a little bit more about that in a few minutes but let's get these jerky pieces in the smoker [Music] as you can see I have my ambient temperature probe on the top rack here that's all it's gonna do that rack is just hold this probe Jerky's in let's get it smoking so for this chicken turkey making process it's important to follow some safety procedures now I'm not making this for long-term storage so I'm not using any curing salt in it this is gonna be short-term stored in the fridge but chicken is different than beef when you're making jerky there is a chance of developing salmonella bacteria on here so the first part of this process one hour at 225 because basically we're cooking this chicken first we're getting it to a hundred and sixty-five degrees internal minimum that first hour should take care of that then for the next three to four hours usually it only takes about that long I'm dropping the temperature down to 170 to continue that drying process with some smoke what I'm using today are hickory wood chips because I love Hickory on jerky chicken turkey beef doesn't matter I just love the taste of Hickory so we're going with Hickory so for the next hour 225 get this chicken cooked safely and let the drying process continue bring you back when it's time to check it lower the temperature all right we've been going for an hour now smoker temps been holding right around 225 got good smoke but it's time to check these chicken pieces and turn our temperature down looking good getting those first hints of jerky development the edges right there you can see they're starting to pull in and retract getting shrinkage there it's looking good alright let's reset our temperature down to 170 and keep smoking these chicken jerky pieces [Music] alright our temperatures been set at 225 I'm gonna take it down to 170 good with that bring it back in a few hours mole check and see how our chicken jerky is doing alright we are about three and a half hours into this the first hour was at 225 the second two and a half hours we're about 170 you can see we're holding 168 right now let's give this a check and see how our chicken turkeys doing oh you're definitely starting to look like jerky there I'd be a little difficult to see in this light but now it's bending they're still not breaking it needs to be a little drier some of the thinner pieces might be actually closer let's take a look at this one this one looks kind of thin yeah you can see how that's starting to break there so that's good but I don't mind it drier so I'm just gonna leave that in I want to say but probably have another hour to go here so close it up let it keep smoking [Music] see in about an hour all right it's been another hour so we are at a total of four and a half hours first hour at 2:25 the remainder right around 170 you can see we're 175 right now let's check this jerky because I think we're probably done oh that's looking really good that is jerky that is looking really good here and get a piece out of here that it's good looking jerky now I could definitely take this further get it dryer and dryer for preservation but as I said I'm not going to preserve this this is gonna go in the refrigerator but this amount it'll be gone in a couple days let's go ahead and get this off get it inside I have a taste here we go our chicken jerky when you start with two pounds this is about what you end up with it shrinks that dehydrates and this was not done in a dehydrator we were using heat to help remove the moisture you could just as easily do this process in the oven or in a dehydrator but the key with chicken is you got to get it cooked first you got to get it to that hundred and sixty-five degrees to kill the bacteria before you start drying if you want to do it another way that's completely up to you I choose to do it the safe way and cook it to that safe temperature before the drying process begins and again I'm not doing this to preserve it so there's no curing salt in this this is gonna be gone within a couple days but man look at that great color the smell is awesome coming off this even off of a dried piece of meat because of that marinade and those spices in there especially that Cajun spice that I used you can use any spice you want but for me I really like the Cajun spice on chicken jerky what can I say it's time to taste now I'm gonna taste two different pieces here one of the ones that's very thin so very dried out and one that's a little thicker a little meteor you know it could have gone even another hour or so those pieces but for me that's fine I actually like jerky when it's got sort of a variety of textures and thicknesses there let's go with that thin piece first hmm if for whatever reason you are avoiding red meat do not hesitate to make jerky out of chicken or turkey really once you get it to this point the flavors that you put into it sort of go front and center you almost forget that it's not beef you just have a great flavor great jerky texture really really good now a piece that's a little more meaty mmm same great flavor a little more bite to it because you're biting through some of that chicken that isn't quite fully fully dried out yet still very dry and it's jerky but a nice little bit of bite to that mmm so remember jerky doesn't just have to be made from beef and as long as you follow some safety procedures especially for the cut of meat that you're gonna be using you should be fine and if you're doing it like me where you're gonna put it in the refrigerator afterwards and not keep it for very long this is really the way to go [Music]

Channel: Cooking With Ry

Views: 101,315

Keywords: cooking, cooking channel, cooking with ry, ryne pearson, ryne douglas pearson, jerky, chicken jerky

Id: YFAHltzDZGk

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 23 2019