what is the secret to a really good baked chicken?

Make sure you don't over cook it.

Bake at 180C (350F) for 30 minutes turning once,and it will be perfect every time

H-man

Without cut and pasting a diatribe of useless info, I will say that brining any poutry is the way to go. Mix a 1/4 cup of kosher salt (you can use table salt, but kosher is better) into a gallon of water. Disolve well, the submerge chicken in brine, and brine for 1 hour per pound of the chicken. After brining pre-heat oven to 375-400 dpeending on over. Rinse chicken well, then pat dry. Coat with some vegetable oil, and season with your choice of seasoning mix (poutry blend is rosaemary, sage and thyme) Some on outside and some in cavity. Tuck wings behind collar bone and bake. You can baste some while cooking, but suggest you temp the bird to be sure to not over cook. A favorite of mine is to soak some orange wedges in some grand marnior then stuff the orange slices under the skin about the breast meat. This will self baste the chicken, and the sugars will carmalize a bit. Brining is basically reverse osmosis. Instead of drawing the moisture out. it draws in it, and retains it. Hope this helps.

For a whole chicken, skotch it first and bake it flat...check out Alton Brown's recipe on the Food Network.

For chicken pieces, breast meat is very difficult to keep from drying out but with some prep you will get it. The day or the day before you are going to bake the chicken, you need to brine it. That's the biggest "secret" to keeping it moist and juicy. Even if you stir fry it, as long as you don't overcook it, it will stay moist and tender with brining. To brine, just heavily salt cold water and place your chicken into the water making sure it's submerged. If it's frozen, leave it overnight, if fresh a few hours will be enough. If you forget it, as I did once, and leave it a couple of days, the meat will be wanting to fall apart when you take it from the brine but it will firm back up with heat. Cook it how you want at this point. A word about the crockpot...you must make sure the chicken stays in the broth and that it cooks several hours and it will fall apart every time it will be so tender. Good luck.

kimberly is the only other person here with the right answer. THE secret to really good chicken is to BRINE it. It's a bit hard to understand the reason why - because it isn't obvious. Salt is often used to dry things out. But in this case, it causes the chicken meat to remain moist after cooking. The reason is because the salt is mixed with water in a low concentration, about the same as sea water or the water in the human body like tears. Chicken has a lot of white meat. It has a lot of protein, low fat, and it starts with quite a bit of water before cooking.

So why does so much of the meat get dry during cooking, particularly the large pieces of white meat? Is it because cooking causes most of the water to evaporate? Nope, that's not it. If you weigh a skinless boneless breast before and after cooking, it doesn't lose very much weight. Water is relatively heavy. If most of the water evaporated then it would be much lighter, but it isn't. If you have ever seen dehydrated chicken, it is much lighter without the water. So where did the water go? It's all still there. It hasn't gone anywhere. Then why is it so dry? The meat contains a lot of protein of long, loose strands of molecules, and when protein is heated to cooking temperature, it reacts (denaturation) by curling up and trapping the water molecules inside the structure. Some other examples are egg whites and gelatin. Egg whites are very liquid until heated - causing the protein to lock in the moisture and solidify as each molecule interlocks - like a bunch of loose strings that get all knotted together. Most of the water in the egg is still there - but it gets solid and less liquid.

How does the salt cause the chicken meat to retain more moisture? The salt is mixed with water, and the salt slowly starts to get absorbed into the meat. The salt partially denatures the protein, causing it to start to curl up and absorb some of the water, but not as much as cooking denatures the protein. Initially, the salt causes the meat to become a bit more dry, but it's still soaking in brine which has more water to replace the water that was absorbed. More water is drawn into the meat, and part of the water has started to get locked up - so less water gets locked up during cooking (since it has partially denatured) and more water is left to keep the texture moist once it's fully cooked. The salt also seasons the meat and helps bring out the natural flavor. Many brines also has sugar, which helps to balance the saltiness of the brine, it also does some denaturing of the protein and brings in more water. The amount of sugar is low enough that it doesn't get overly sweet - just more balanced by tasting less salty.

Most marinades don't always work the same as brine, particularly if they are acidic. Marinades are primarily for flavoring and seasoning the exterior of the meat because they aren't given enough time to soak. A lot of people mistakenly think that the acid in marinades tenderizes the meat. Acids in marinades are for the tangy flavor, but they actually make the meat less tender and can ruin the texture of the meat by destroying the cell walls and releasing the moisture. Soaking meat for a long time in an acidic brine can cause the meat to turn to mush that becomes a dry and chalky disaster after cooking. Brines contain no acids that could damage the meat. Seasonings can be added to the brine to add flavor during soaking. But some marinades can have the same benefits of brining, it contains salt, sugar, and water and is allowed to soak long enough. The problem is that most marinades are much saltier and have less water than brine, so long soaking times can oversalt the meat. Brining needs a long soak time for the salt and sugar to do their work all the way to the center of the thickest pieces of meat.

The rest of the secret to really good baked chicken is even heating and cooking the least amount of time to cook through to the center of the thick parts, without overcooking the legs, wings, while the breast meat is still cooking. A rotisserie or a convection oven is the best for this. I make a roasted chicken that is as good as I've had anywhere. I just put the chicken in brine as soon as i get it. I have a convection microwave grill combo oven that has a roast chicken mode. I put the chicken on a wire grill rack with a plate underneath to catch the excess fat, I press two buttons and I've got a golden brown bird with moist and flavorful meat that is fall off the bone tender in about an hour.

For a roasted whole chicken--I use a pre-heated 400-[F] oven.

I season the chicken cavity.

I like to use injections.

I'll make 3-different injections.

Plus--I oil the exterior of the chicken, and powder that with pepper/

I place the chicken, covered in the 400-[F] degree oven.

When the Oven Light turns-OFF, I lower the oven to 300-[F]

I'll remove the cover at about 40-minutes.

Cook to 170-[F]

Turn-OFF the oven and let the chicken rest for 30-40 minutes more.

(remaining inside the oven)

You can also re-cover the bird.

Keep it simple and just don't over cook it. It really doesn't take that long to cook a chicken. It cooks pretty fast even on low heat.. Rub with a little butter or oil, salt pepper, maybe lemon pepper sprig of rosemary & small onion in the cavity. No water, lay thick slices of onion on the bottom then chicken on top, Bake for 3 hours on high. If you add water if will be like soup, no water makes it like oven roasted so onions on bottom keeps it from sticking or burning. Oh turn it breast side down so all the juices go to the breast on bottom and it wont be stuck up there on top getting dried out. :)

I take chicken a day before roasting: cut slits in all the fat so it drains out then mix salt, pepper and baking powder and rub all over skin of chicken. Let it sit in frig uncovered to dry overnight. Then roast as usual. The baking powder sounds weird, I know, but it works. It dries the skin so it's really crispy. i use an injector and inject saltwater, lemon juice and olive oil into chicken before baking. I also use my injector to suck up juice from chicken while baking and shoot it back into the bird instead of basting. Hope this helps.

Oven bags with the marinade of you're choice. Even breasts come out juicy if you do it right.

First step is getting good meat.

fried chicken.