Chef sparks debate about seasoning chicken with just salt in viral recipe

Zoe Barrie used just ‘salt and time’ to make her chicken taste good

A chef who frequently posts recipes on social media has divided the internet over how to season chicken.

Zoe Barrie, who has more than 500k followers on TikTok, shared a recipe for spatchcocked roast chicken on her platform earlier this week, which involved a dry brining method.

She began her video by saying that one of the biggest lessons she learned in cooking school was that “with the proper amount of salt and time, chicken can taste delicious”.

Barrie’s method was to heavily salt the raw chicken and leave it in the fridge overnight uncovered to “dry it out”. The next day, she removed the chicken from the fridge, patted the bird dry and added black pepper before starting to cook it.

Once cooked, she covered the chicken in a “lemon chimichurri” sauce, which included lemon, parsley, oregano, garlic, shallot, red wine vinegar, salt, and olive oil.

In her video, Barrie acknowledged that she would “get a lot of crap for saying” that all her chicken needed was “salt and time” to taste good.

Viewers quickly proved her right, with many demanding to know why she hadn’t added seasoning aside from salt and pepper to the meat.

“Are they allergic to seasoning or something?” one person wrote.

Another said: “Salt? That’s it?”

Others criticised Barrie for not “washing” her chicken in her preparation, with some claiming it was unsanitary and a potential food hazard not to do so.

“I kept on waiting for the chicken to be washed,” one commenter said, while another added: “Wash your chicken with lemon or vinegar please!”

Washing raw meat – including poultry, beef, pork, lamb or veal – before cooking is not recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture. The department warns that doing so may spread bacteria in raw meat and poultry juices to other cooking utensils and surfaces, and cause cross-contamination.

Some viewers defended Barrie’s method of salting the chicken and using the chimichurri to add flavour, rather than using powdered seasoning such as garlic or onion powder.

“Y’all, lemon zest, jalapeno, pepper, parsley, oregano, garlic, shallots… those are all seasonings. Sorry she didn’t use dried red powder?” one person said.

Another added: “In these comments: Americans who’ve had their taste buds destroyed by processed powders, who think that seasoning can only come from a plastic jar.”

Dry-brining chicken is a popular method and is usually done before roasting the bird as in Barrie’s video. Doing so helps result in a crispier skin.