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. |
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.
Look on A Spoonful of Sugar Free blog for a BBQ sauce I use for pork shoulder. Not super fantastic, but really good when slow-cooked WITH the meat. Or check out the recipe on Stupid Easy Paleo, I haven't tried that one yet but the ingredients sound delish!
ReplyDeleteThanks Diana! Did you know this trick already?
DeleteThis is great! I hate shredding with forks. Unfortunately, I don't have a Kitchenaid. Wonder if my hand mixer would do it?
ReplyDeleteIt's worth a shot. Save your fingers!!!
Deletei knew about this trick but totally forgot. still friends?? also, i use these bear claw thingies i got on amazon. they're better than forks (no burnt fingers), but i bet the kitchenaid will still be 10 times better.
ReplyDeleteCyndi - I guess so, but only because I need a yard sale/farmers market/everything awesome buddy ;)
DeleteI want to see those mitts, maybe now that we've rendered them useless you can turn them into DIY hand puppets.