There’s a fine line between cooking chicken until it’s done, and cooking chicken until it’s overdone. In general, you never want dry chicken meat. However, you do want dry chicken skin — crispy, crunchy, and full of flavor. And according to celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis, there’s one surprising way to upgrade the crispy skin on your whole roasted chicken: Take a hair dryer to the chicken before cooking it.
The purpose of the hair dryer trick is to put direct heat on the chicken skin to help dehydrate it prior to putting it in the oven. All you need to do is blast it with the hair dryer for around two minutes, but the exact timing could vary depending on the chicken’s size. Removing some of that moisture helps the skin get extra crispy once it hits the oven heat. Be mindful that since this trick is meant for chicken that still has the skin on, it might not bear the same results if it’s used on skinless chicken, such as chicken breasts, and could instead leave the meat too dry.
More tips for drying your chicken skin
When Giada De Laurentiis shared a YouTube video testing this trick, she used it on a whole chicken, resulting in the two-minute timeline. For a smaller piece of skin-on chicken, such as a thigh, you might want to cut that time at least in half. Once you’ve used the hair dryer, add some olive oil to the skin — De Laurentiis jokingly refers to this as “suntan lotion” — and then season the bird. The olive oil will help crisp the skin even more, while the seasonings add flavor. Do not cover the chicken with foil or the skin will end up too moist.
Reddit users have mixed feelings on the hack, with some calling it genius, while others suggest just salting the bird and refrigerating it overnight, which has the same dehydrating effect. Ultimately, it’s up to you if it’s worth it to break out the hair dryer or go the salted route; if you have an extra fatty bird, you can also try the boiled water method for crispy skin.
