I would rather buy less chicken and buy it better. Basic supermarket chicken is a lottery: sometimes it is fine and sometimes it is not, and in the catering kitchen at work the quality changes from one delivery to the next. On a US pack, “air chilled” is one of the few words that tells you something real about what is inside.
Here is what it means, what it changes in the pan, and what it does not do, because the label often gets sold as more than it is.
The short answer
Air-chilled chicken is cooled with cold air after slaughter, instead of in a tank of iced water. A water-chilled bird soaks up some of that water, and an air-chilled one loses a little instead. So with air-chilled chicken you are not paying for water, and the skin browns more readily. It is not safer, and in tasting tests people could not tell the two apart once they were cooked.
How chicken gets chilled
After a chicken is slaughtered and plucked, it has to be cooled quickly so bacteria do not get going. There are two ways of doing it.
Water chilling. Most US chicken goes through a chiller, a long tank of ice-cold water the birds move through, for about 50 minutes in the studies I read. The meat takes up water on the way. In those studies water-chilled carcasses came out roughly 4 to 7 per cent heavier than they went in, and an older USDA survey of 13 plants averaged just under 6 per cent.
Air chilling. The birds hang in cold air instead, sometimes with a fine water spray. Nothing soaks in, and they lose a little moisture, about 1 to 2 per cent of their weight in the same studies. It is the standard method in much of Europe and is sold as a premium in the US.
Kosher and halal chicken goes a third way. It is salted for up to an hour and rinsed briefly rather than soaked, and like air-chilled chicken it takes up very little water.
What the extra water does in the pan
This is the part that matters to a cook. A brown crust only forms once the surface of the meat has dried out and gone well past the boiling point of water. While there is water on the surface, the pan is busy boiling it off and the chicken steams instead of searing. Chicken carrying spare water brings more of it to the pan, so it is slower to colour and the skin is slower to crisp. Air-chilled chicken starts drier, which is why its skin browns more readily.
You can help any chicken the same way, and my recipes already do it:
- Dry the surface. In my coq au vin the chicken comes out of its night in the wine and gets patted dry before it goes into the pan.
- Do not cook it fridge-cold. My Polish braised chicken sits out for 20 minutes before searing, then goes in skin side down and is left alone for 5 to 7 minutes.
- Do not crowd the pan. My mango butter chicken is browned in batches, because a crowded pan steams the chicken instead of colouring it.
- Do not trap the steam afterwards. My katsu cutlets rest on a wire rack, not kitchen paper, which traps steam and softens the crumb underneath.
Where it makes no difference
If the chicken is going into a pot of water, none of this matters much. For a soup or a stock I use a whole bird, or two poussins, and any water the bird brought with it ends up in the broth anyway. My krupnik starts a whole poussin in cold water. A long braise or a curry is close to the same: there is a short sear at the start, and after that the chicken cooks in liquid.
Is air-chilled chicken safer?
Not in any way you can count on. The studies comparing the two methods found no consistent winner on Salmonella or Campylobacter. Some found fewer bacteria on air-chilled birds, some found fewer on water-chilled ones, and several found little difference.
So the rules in your kitchen are the same whichever you buy. Cook chicken to 74°C (165°F) in the thickest part and check it with a thermometer, because the colour of the meat tells you nothing. And do not wash raw chicken in the sink: it does not make it any safer, and it splashes whatever is on it around your kitchen.
Does it taste better or stay juicier?
Less than the packet suggests. In one tasting panel of 72 people there was no difference in how much they liked the flavour or the texture. Plain breasts lost about the same weight in cooking whichever way they had been chilled.
Where the water really shows is at the till. If 5 per cent of a pack is water, you are paying chicken prices for it.
Retained water and pumped chicken: read the label
On a US label, water picked up in the chiller has to be declared, as “up to X% retained water” or “less than X% retained water”, printed near the name. There is no legal limit on the number: it is whatever the plant’s own figures show. A pack with no statement is one where the plant’s figures show none, and some packs say “no retained water” outright.
The bigger one is an added solution, which is a different thing from chiller water. Chicken can be injected or tumbled with water, salt, broth or phosphates, and then the solution has to appear in the product name, for example “chicken breast containing up to 15% of a solution of” followed by what is in it. That can sit on a pack that also says “natural”, because natural only means no artificial ingredients and minimal processing.
This is what I mean by pumped chicken. It puts weight on, so the producer makes more per kilo, and when you cook it the water comes out and you are left with less than you paid for. In my experience it is much less common on free-range and organic birds, so that is what I buy.
When is it worth paying for?
Better chicken is worth every penny. I would rather eat less of it and buy it better. Where the money shows:
- Roasting a whole bird, where the skin is half the point.
- Searing or pan-frying, a breast or thighs going in skin side down.
- Breaking a bird down yourself. You get two breasts, two thighs, two drumsticks, the wings, and the carcass for stock. My braised chicken starts with a whole chicken broken down this way.
Where I would not spend it is soup, stock and long braises, where the chicken spends its time in liquid. In the UK the chilling method is rarely printed on the pack, so I go by free-range or organic. If you are in the US and the pack says air chilled as well, that is the one I would pick.
Air-chilled chicken FAQ
Is air-chilled chicken healthier?
No. It is the same meat with less water in it, and as above, it is not safer either. What you gain is a better sear and not paying for water.
Is air-chilled chicken washed in chlorine?
Not in a chlorinated bath, because there is no bath. It still goes through the plant’s earlier washes and sprays, and what goes into those depends on the plant. It is the water-chilling tanks that commonly use chlorine or peracetic acid in the water.
Why is air-chilled chicken more expensive?
Part of it is simply that you are not buying water with it, so a kilo of air-chilled chicken is more chicken. Beyond that it is sold as a premium product, and the price follows.
Do I cook air-chilled chicken differently?
No. Same temperatures and same times. It colours a little sooner in a hot pan, so keep an eye on it.
Is kosher or halal chicken air chilled?
It is salted and briefly rinsed rather than soaked, so like air-chilled chicken it takes up very little water. The salting does mean it keeps less well, so cook it sooner.
What does “fresh” mean on a chicken label?
In the US it means the raw chicken has never been held below 26°F (about -3°C). Frozen means it has been held at 0°F or below.
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