Costco Chicken Skewers

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Skewered chicken breast should be dry. It is a lean muscle cut into small pieces, which maximises the surface area it can lose water from, and then cooked fast and hot. Everything about the format is working against you.

Costco's are not dry, and the reason is not the marinade. It is that the chicken has been sitting in salt long enough to change how much water it can hold.

What salt actually does here

Salt dissolves some of the proteins in the muscle and disrupts the structure that squeezes water out when it heats. Brined chicken loses noticeably less moisture during cooking, and what it does lose it loses more slowly.

That is a different mechanism from marinade flavour. A marinade barely penetrates past the surface in a couple of hours — the flavour is a coating. The salt is the part doing structural work, and it needs time.

Two hours is the minimum that makes a difference. Overnight is better.

The vegetables are a timing problem

The skewers alternate chicken with peppers and onion, which look right and cook at completely different rates. Peppers are mostly water and collapse; chicken needs to reach 74°C.

Two ways out, and both are better than pretending they cook together:

Separate skewers. Chicken on one, vegetables on another, pull each when it is done. This is what actually works.

Cut the vegetables much bigger than the chicken. A large chunk of pepper survives the time the chicken needs.

What you need

• 900 g chicken breast, cut into 3 cm cubes
• 2 tbsp salt and 1 litre water, for the brine
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 red pepper and 1 yellow pepper, in large squares
• 1 red onion, in wedges

Method

1. 1. Dissolve the salt in the water and submerge the chicken. **Two hours minimum, in the fridge.**
2. 2. Drain and pat dry. Do not rinse and do not add more salt after this — the chicken is already seasoned all the way through.
3. 3. Mix the oil, lemon, garlic, paprika, oregano and pepper. Toss the chicken in it for 20 minutes while you heat the grill.
4. 4. Thread the chicken onto skewers, leaving a small gap between pieces. **Packed tight, the touching faces steam instead of browning.**
5. 5. Vegetables onto their own skewers.
6. 6. Grill or griddle hot: chicken 10–12 minutes turning every few minutes, vegetables 6–8.

The gap between the pieces

This one is worth insisting on. Chicken cubes pressed against each other on a skewer have two faces that never see heat directly. Those faces steam in their own moisture, come out pale, and drag the cooking time up for everything else.

Half a centimetre of daylight between pieces is enough.

Storing

Cooked, three days in the fridge. They reheat better than most chicken breast because of the brine, but reheat them covered and gently rather than blasting them.

Raw and marinated, cook within a day.