How To Hack It: Does Blow Drying A Chicken Make It Crispier?

In a sea of “kitchen hacks” and strange Pinterest tips, how do you ever know which ones really work?

Don’t worry – we’re doing the leg-work for you! We’re unveiling a new online series with Giada called: How To Hack It! We’ll be testing out some of the most viral food and cooking hacks we’ve found online, and debunking whether or not they really work.

In our kickoff episode, we tested out an intriguing method to roasting a supposedly very crispy chicken… blow drying it when it’s raw before throwing it in the oven! In theory, it makes sense. The presence of water hinders browning of any food: water starts evaporating at 212 degrees F, while browning doesn’t start happening until an excess of 300 degrees. That’s why when you crowd a pan of veggies, they just spend all that time steaming, and not actually browning! It’s also why we deglaze pans with water to get all those bits off the bottom. 

In this case, we were skeptical, but optimistic! Technically, blow-drying the chicken skin and ridding it of all the water could help get the skin extra brown and crispy. We thought the image of Giada blowdrying a whole chicken was hilarious in the moment, but does it work? What do you think? Check out the video to find out!