Help. Dry stuffed chicken breasts.

[Fordian]

Cooked (slightly hefty) chicken breasts, slit, with Camembert, chives and garlic mashed inside. Wrapped with a bit of streaky bacon. Drizzle of olive oil. Cooked in a 180 oven for 40 mins, uncovered, turned once.

Lovely but DRY.

What could I do differently?

40 minutes for chicken breasts? Far too Lon.

What you can do is butterfly the breasts, use a meat mallet to thin out a bit, stuff, wrap, fry until golden brown, then braise in the pan with some wine/stock whatever.

Not cooked them for a long time but I'm sore I used to wrap them in foil then brown them off in a pan.

I usually put some baking paper under the chicken breast and it keeps the juices in… wrap in foil and just uncover for the last 10 mins.

40 minutes is way too long. 30 max I do mine if they’re really quite big ones. The smaller ones can do 20/25 mins.

Braise them in some stock

If I'm doing chicken breast I would either do in a Pyrex I have with a glass lid and uncover for only say 20 mins, or put another dish in the oven with hot water in, or sometimes I would put wine in the base of whatever I'm cooking. I wouldn't expect them to need turning over either.

I've almost given up on chicken breast for any recipe. I use thighs instead.

I put stock in the dish with the chicken. Keeps it from drying out.

sometime breast meat is just dry tbh, nothing to be done

I recently bought a meat thermometer pokey thing, mostly for checking oil and sugar temperatures but it has made a HUGE difference to my roast chickens, just taking away that fear that five/ten more minutes is needed...once it hits 70c it's out of the oven to rest and is always over 75c when carved. It's juicy, tender and delicious!

You need to cook with a probe

Get the chicken to 79 degrees and out the oven out the hot dish or it will dry out

Into a smoking hot oven 200 degrees down to 180 immediately and I would say your breast should be done in approx 18 mins

Probe is the only way for chicken to be moist

I cook a whole 2,5 kg chicken in under 1.5 hours

Thanks, everyone.