Ah, chicken. So versatile! So comforting! So comfortingly plain! But so, so darn inconsistent. You know how it is: a few seconds here or there with almost any method you use to cook chicken for toddlers (grilling, baking, sauteing, and so forth) can lead to a chalky, rubbery, and/or stringy mess that your child just chews and chews (and chews). Even you will want a nugget at that point.
But there is a method to cook chicken for toddlers that works every time, for every cut, that will produce meat at a level of doneness, tenderness, and chew that is perfect for a young child. Best of all, it requires zero effort, and literally a second of cooking (if you even want to call it that); it is almost anti-cooking in the sheer lack of work it requires. So if you’re just looking to cook some chicken right, and not have to expend time or attention to do so, this is the way.
It goes like this: fill a pot–small if only cooking a piece or two, large if cooking for a family–about two-thirds up with water and set on your stove to boil. Once that water is a roiling boil, do this quickly:
- Drop your chicken pieces into the water, making sure they’re covered by liquid;
- Cover the pot and immediately turn off the heat;
- Allow to sit in the pot for the amount of time listed in the chart below, which is organized by type of chicken piece:
| Cut of Chicken | Cook Time |
| Tender(loin), Cutlet, or very thin Breast | 5-7 minutes |
| Boneless Thigh or smaller Breast | 10 minutes |
| Boneless large Breast or Bone-in Thigh | 15-20 minutes |
| Bone-in Breast | 25 minutes + |
Wondering about why there is a range of multiple minutes for several of these cuts when to cook chicken for toddlers can seemingly fail within microseconds? Simple: because the pieces are sitting in water that will/is cool(ing) over time, once the pieces reach the temperature of doneness they will not be getting hotter/cooking rapidly (Science!), and thus will not cook much further–even if you leave them in for minutes past the cook times listed. Indeed, with thighs and bone-in breasts in particular you can leave the chicken in the pot for at least an hour without affecting the doneness of the meat. Should the meat be underdone when you pull it–and this will likely only happen with a breast–just cut lengthwise down the piece so the center is the edge of your pieces, then toss back into the pot for 2-3 minutes. Done.
Now, let’s call this what it is: it’s a plain chicken piece, albeit a well-cooked one, and it’s going to need some help. You can, of course, chop or shred it up and serve it with a sauce or condiment on the side; you could dunk it in a sauce and sear or grill for a minute, or toss in a sauce you’ve reduced in a pan (say, an orange sauce or soy and honey). But we like it best when it’s put to use in the more composed dishes we use to cook chicken for toddlers, and here are two standouts:
But man (and child) cannot live on poached chicken alone, and we got you with these hot takes on chicken dishes:
