Chicken

For an easy, delicious taco night, try these Shredded Chicken Tacos. The chicken filling, also known as Tinga de Pollo in Mexico - especially the Puebla region - is made by slowly cooking chicken breasts a seasoned tomato sauce to make them super tender and extra tasty. Wrap the chicken tinga filling in warm corn tortillas and sprinkle on your favorite toppings for an easy, fun taco night.

Traditional Caesar dressing can pack 17 grams of fat in a measly 2 tablespoons. We did much better by making light mayo, not oil, the primary ingredient.

This is a winning-contestant recipe from Season Four of FOX's MasterChef. The recipe calls for making homemade stock—using bones from game hens, chickens, or pigeons—to cook the farro in, but if you're short on time, you can substitute purchased low-sodium chicken broth.

Finish these spicy, smoky, guacamole-topped tacos with crisp, thinly sliced radishes and bright lime, and get ready to watch them disappear.

Applying the rub to the chicken ahead of time infuses it with flavor.

Grilled peaches turn this simple chicken and arugula salad with mustard dressing into something worth swooning over.

This chicken feels light and summery. That's because there's no mayo, just lots of herbs and spiced pita chips.

An aggressively seasoned marinade delivers big flavor.

With tongue in cheek, I call this chicken "unfried." That's because I am well known for fried chicken, which may be the crown jewel of southern cooking but is a dish I avoid these days. I like unfried chicken just as much. The chicken is soaked in tangy buttermilk and then coated with flavorful breading, just like fried chicken. The difference is that it's baked. This dish was on the menu at LYFE Kitchen. I first prepared it when Oprah's movie Beloved opened. One of the many lessons I learned from Oprah is to offer people a choice at meals, and one of those choices should be a healthy one. To this day I honor that lesson in my home and my restaurants.

Long before I discovered my love of sashimi, I fell in love with the viscous, sweet taste of teriyaki. With anywhere from 300 to 700mg of sodium per tablespoon, however, teriyaki chicken from the local takeout is now out of the question. So, to meet my cravings, I let go of the original dish and focused on finding a substitute with a similar color, thick coating, and unique flavor. The low-sodium answer lay in tamarind paste—a sweet and tart concentrate made from tamarind seed pods. It is popular in Indian, Middle Eastern, and East Asian cuisines, and can even be found in Worcestershire sauce. Its acidic properties help tenderize meat, and in Ayurvedic medicine it is said to have heart-protecting properties. Or in Western medicine speak, it may help lower bad cholesterol. While it is no teriyaki, this tamarind sauce sure makes a convincing look-alike. The savory sweetness of the tamarind will delight your palate. If you have any leftover herbs in your kitchen, like mint, cilantro, or even some green onion, dice and sprinkle them over the chicken at the end for some extra color and cool flavor. And to make a traditional bento presentation, serve with a slice of orange and crisp lettuce salad.

This recipe was given to me nearly thirty years ago by Garnet McCollum, a North Carolina farm woman I profiled for Family Circle magazine. In that article, I featured about a dozen favorite family recipes, among them her superb fried chicken. I cannot improve upon it. Once salted, this chicken is refrigerated overnight, so you must begin the recipe a day ahead. Note: Back when I interviewed Mrs. McCollum, chicken breasts weren't D cup in size. Now that they are, I suggest that you halve each breast crosswise so that the chicken cooks more evenly.

What I love about wings is that you get a two-in-one treat when you eat them. Wings are great for weeknight cooking too, because they take very little time to prepare and cook.

Chicken breasts aren't the only cut sold skinless and boneless. Thighs are, too. They're fattier than breasts, which means they're more flavorful; plus, they're less expensive. Put them to work in any fast weeknight preparation, starting with these spiced tacos.

Burgers aren't the only grilled things we want to eat with our hands. Thanks to a flavorful brine and a supershort cook time, sandwich-friendly boneless breasts take on a whole new life between two slices of bread.

Avoid rookie mistakes when it comes to barbecuing. If you apply the sauce too early, it will scorch. And most bottled sauces are too sweet, which is where this vinegary version comes in.

This spicy, sticky glazed chicken features sambal oelek, a bright and punchy chile-packed condiment, giving these grilled skewers a very convincing comeback.

Remember: Spatchcock is not a dirty word. In fact, it's the speediest, easiest way to grill a whole bird. Also known as butterflying, the technique (see above) exposes lots of skin directly to the heat, guaranteeing thorough browning and crisping— coaxed further by pressing with bricks. Spatchcocked chicken, delicious on its own, is also great Garlicky Mayonnaise , Charred Tomatillo Salsa Verde , or Zingy Red Sauce .

There's quite a bit of lore surrounding beer-can chicken, and for good reason. Just look at that burnished mahogany bird. The steam from the brew flavors the meat and keeps it moist. The can props the chicken up, so it roasts evenly—no scorching, no flipping, no stressing. And you get to drink some beer. We're believers.

The seductively high ratio of skin to meat is what makes wings taste so good, and grilling takes full advantage of that. This herb marinade is bright and summery, and light enough to let the skin get nice and crisp.