Is Your Chicken Coming Out Too Dry? Cover It In This Popular Condiment Before Baking

Pulling a dry, stringy piece of chicken out of the oven is a major culinary disappointment, especially when you were expecting to create something moist and delicious. Thankfully, there's an easy fix that you likely already have sitting in your fridge: mayonnaise. Coating your chicken with mayonnaise, or even marinating your chicken with it, can help improve both the texture and taste of poultry. You can use this technique on any cut of chicken you're going to bake in the oven, and it even works well when slathered on a whole bird. If you're not a fan of the taste of mayonnaise, don't worry. Coating your chicken in mayonnaise before you cook it isn't going to impart much flavor into your chicken. 

Here's why this trick works to create moist, tender chicken. Mayo has three main components: egg yolk, oil, and vinegar (or another acid, like lemon juice). As your chicken cooks, the egg and oil work together to keep the chicken moist, all while creating the golden crust that's a hallmark of perfectly cooked chicken. If you're coating your chicken with seasoning (give taco seasoning a try if you want to create something seriously unforgettable), mayo can also help it stick to the surface more easily. This tip is pretty simple, but there are a few things you'll want to keep in mind to help make the most of your mayo chicken.

If you want to go the extra mile, try marinating your chicken in mayo for a bit before you pop it into the oven, as this gives the marinade more time to work on the meat before cooking. You don't have to go too crazy; letting it marinate in the fridge for 15 minutes or so is enough to give the coating some time to settle in. While you can slather your chicken with mayo and let it roast to perfection, you'd be missing a great opportunity to apply flavorful seasonings to the sticky surface. You can coat your chicken in seasoned breadcrumbs that you toss together yourself, or you can use an easy prepackaged coating mix like Shake 'N Bake, the old-school boomer dinner that used to feed everyone on a budget, to add both flavor and crunch.

The type of mayo you use matters. If you want to go with a homemade version, more power to you (try adding some bacon fat to your homemade mayo to infuse extra flavor). If you'd rather go with a store-bought mayo, be sure you choose a full-fat version. Its higher oil content helps the chicken brown while adding richness as it cooks.