 So you know about beef jerky and turkey jerky, but what about chicken jerky made with chicken breasts? This is macro and budget-friendly super easy to do. I'll show you how I make it today But pellet smoker and an air fryer dehydrator. Let's start with a simple marinade for two pounds of chicken We're gonna go half cup of bachons Japanese barbecue sauce a fourth cup of sriracha and two tablespoons of rice vinegar traditional Chicken jerky or jerky marinades are gonna be things like soy sauce Everyone's favorite unpronounceable sauce worcestershire sauce That umami saltiness you can add dry seasonings like black pepper crushed red pepper You really make this jerky Marinate your own whatever you use. We're just gonna mix this up and then marinate our chicken ideally overnight Speaking of chicken you'll want to slice this into an eighth to a fourth inch slices to make life easy you'll want to freeze this for maybe an hour before or What I did was went from Completely frozen chicken breasts. I let it thaw for about an hour This makes slicing so much easier You'll inevitably have some size discrepancies due to the shape of chicken breast What you're really concerned with is having a consistent thickness Otherwise your really thin pieces will completely dry out and overcook in the dehydrator smoker Before your thick pieces can fully dry out talk more about how to tell when the jerky is ready to go A little bit later, but first let's get all this chicken into the marinade Toss it together make sure all the pieces are not stuck together And fully submerged in the marinade you can transfer this to like a ziploc bag Or you can tightly wrap this with plastic wrap and marinate I said earlier overnight, but eight hours would be fine if you want to do this in the same day So i'll be showing you two different methods Of making jerky today. The first will be in the instant vortex pro air fryer using its dehydrator function Any dehydrator will work here. This is the only dehydrator. I have experience with so don't ask me for too many dehydrator pro tips But you'll want to make sure you get these in an even layer Not stacking try to leave a little bit of space in between so you get even air flow And so the jerky doesn't stick together And then we'll go in To the dehydrator for about three hours at 160 degrees fahrenheit if you're using something with multi levels like the instant Vortex pro you want to switch the racks from top to bottom About halfway through so at the hour and a half mark This is their recommendation for making jerky Other dehydrators may not require you to switch racks around just this model If you want to be absolutely certain your chicken jerky reaches that 165 degree fahrenheit internal temperature You can throw this back in this air fryer or into an oven at about 275 degrees for five to ten minutes Then use a food thermometer just to double check you make it there Okay, let's talk making chicken jerky on a pellet smoker This is a traeger pro 575 and a pound of chicken pretty much takes up the entire Grill grate here So unless you have you know a second rack or some kind of rack system for your pellet smoker About a pound of chicken jerky is all you'll be able to do here while keeping them spaced out We're going to smoke it at 200 degrees. I'm using the traeger Signature pellets, but you can match the type of wood with your marinade You know, whether it's like a sweeter cherry apple something like that I would highly recommend doing that You know and something I didn't mention in the dehydrator version is you'll miss out on that smokiness With using an indoor dehydrator So you may want to add something like liquid smoke To the marinade if you're not using a real smoker So we'll go about Two and a half to three hours On the smoker at 200 degrees And you'll know when it's ready when you can bend without breaking And then when you tear into it, you shouldn't see any moisture when you bend if you do You need to go a little bit longer and when you tear into the jerky You should see these little white fibers like you see here Again, no moisture should be there Fully cooked and then like I mentioned earlier if you're extra nervous about this being chicken You can you know throw this into an oven at 275 to make sure you're fully cooked You want to make sure your jerky cools to room temperature before you package it up Oxygen and moisture are the enemy of shelf life here I'll link to a blog post in the description below with more tips on storing your jerky