The Cooking Tip that Saved My (Fingers) Life

Ever tried to shred chicken with forks? Don’t, it sucks. Invariably, when I decide to attempt shredding by hand, I wind up sitting at my kitchen table with burned fingers, a half-torn pile of bird, and a deep sense of regret.

A few weeks ago during a visit to Maryland with some friends, the talk turned to food. As we discussed various forms of shredded meat (this is totally normal), I began bemoaning the process of shredded poultry. That’s when my beautiful, brilliant, perfect friend uttered five words that changed my life forever:

“I use the KitchenAid."

I begged her to tell me more. The explanation took about 30 seconds. It goes something like this: put cooked chicken in the Kitchen Aid and turn it on. The end.

Seems too good to be true, but it really works. I tried it last weekend with a huge batch and it came out perfect. I prepared the chicken by boiling because I wanted to make broth at the same time, but I think baking on low could work too.

Super Simple Shredded Chicken

• 4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or as much as you like) 
• 1 onion, peeled and quartered 
• 4 garlic cloves 
• half a bunch fresh parsley (or 2 T dried) 
• 2 bay leaves 
• 1 T salt 
• 1 tsp pepper

Shredded chicken heaven.

While these are the spices and flavorings I chose, you could really flavor it any way you like – or even none at all. It's basically as much work as you want to put into it.) First put all the non-chicken ingredients in a large stockpot. Then drop in the whole chicken breasts and covered the whole thing in water. Put the pot on a medium high heat; when it starts to boil turn it down to a simmer and let cook for 30 minutes.

After it's done cooking, turn off the heat. You can pull it out right away, but it was really hot (duh) so I let it sit for another 30 mins on the stove to cool a bit. Then I picked up each piece of chicken with tongs and put it in the kitchen aid mixing bowl. I used the paddle attachment and turned it on the lowest setting and watched the magic happen. It took about a minute to create perfectly shredded chicken goodness. Life changed.

I used this good stuff all week with various sauces and sides; it was awesome. I couldn't find a great paleo BBQ sauce so I ended up throwing a bunch of stuff together to make due. Maybe I'll make it again and actually measure the ingredients so I can share.

Do you have a good sauce recipe? Would love to hear it!

PS If you knew about this trick and didn’t tell me, we are no longer friends.

PPS Unless you have a good BBQ sauce recipe for me, then we're cool.