Here's How To Prevent Your Chicken From Being Raw In The Middle

Perhaps you forgot to defrost your chicken before you left for work, or maybe you're rushing to get dinner on the table. Whatever the reason, it usually ends in chicken that's raw on the inside but fully cooked on the outside. According to Bon Appétit, temperature is particularly important when it comes to chicken. While you can sear a steak and enjoy it rare, you have to be a lot more careful with the popular poultry. 

If you want your chicken to cook evenly, you can't rush the process, and that means you should never use blazing hot oil or put your stove on the highest heat setting. Crowding the pan with too much chicken also messes with the temperature. The best way to go about preventing your chicken from being raw in the middle is to use a meat thermometer and make sure that the inside of the chicken reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

So you've cut into your chicken and discovered it's still pink on the inside. Now what do you do? The most obvious solution is to just put it back in the pan or oven immediately, however Food52 states you'll first have to do some tweaking in order to salvage it. Since you don't want chicken that's tough and dry in some spots, but perfectly cooked in others, Food52 recommends first slicing the chicken into thinner pieces. Then, along with a bit of stock, you'll want to put the slices into a covered baking dish and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 

If you don't want to bother preheating an oven, Buzzfeed says the stove works just as well. Simply place the chicken in the pan with the raw side face down. This helps stave off any further loss of moisture caused by the two rounds of cooking. After all, the only thing as bad as raw chicken is dry chicken.