Chicken is a staple on dinner plates across the UK but it is sometimes hard to get the skin crispy. Luckily for home chefs, a secret ingredient has been revealed to can make chicken skin “amazingly crispy”.
One Reddit user asked: “What’s your ‘weird but life-changing’ cooking hack?” They explained that they had two, including using a chicken stock cube for pasta and using scissors to cut ingredients. However, a number of people replied with a secret ingredient, which costs just 60p, to make chicken skin crispy.
A user named dalore said: “Baking powder on your chicken skin for extra crispy.” The comment ammassed a number of replies, with many agreeing with the unique method.
Cakestheanswer replied: “I do this with my chicken wings and omg……… So amazingly crispy!” Acetyl-CoA added: “This is what I do for wings in the air fryer. Makes them nice and crispy without the mess of using oil.”
Krylen explained how the method works. They also recommended people to season their chicken with salt and pepper before cooking.
They said: “The baking powder thing works great in the oven with no deep fry finish needed. Pat dry, coat with a mixture of salt/pepper/baking powder.
“Let sit for 30 minutes or so. Put them in the oven. Use convection or air fry if your oven has it but they will be crispy in a regular oven too. Skin comes out almost crackly it’s so crispy.”
However, spade_andarcher issued a warning on the method. They urged people: “It’s worth noting that the skin needs to be dry for the baking soda to help.
“If you’re using a wet marinade it isn’t going to do anything. In fact, it will actually neutralize the acid in your marinade and make the whole process pointless.”
Baking powder helps to break down proteins on chicken skin which makes it brown quicker. It also creates bubbles that lead to a crunchy texture when cooked.
Carbon dioxide bubbles are also created due to the reaction between baking powder and the moisture from the chicken. This causes the skin to dry and harden, becoming crackly.
