Smoked Chicken Breast
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This Smoked Chicken Breast recipe is one that will quickly become a regular on your menu. Enjoy right away after cooking or use the chicken breast in other recipes to add the amazing flavors that only smoking can offer.
Smoked Chicken Breast
Chicken breast has always been a weekly go to for our family because it is lean, affordable and considerably more healthy than other meats. We’ve started smoking our chicken breast to switch up the flavor and create a delicious protein that even our kids love.
Smoking our chicken breast on Sunday has become somewhat of a ritual around here. We’ll buy a large pack and smoke for an early dinner on Sunday and then use the left overs for weekly meal prep. One of us works out of the home and the other works from home. Both of us still enjoy meal prepping with this chicken breast because it’s delicious, moist and healthy. Pair it with steam veggies or add on top of your favorite salad for smoked protein.
The best part of smoked chicken is it changes up the chicken you are already use to. Use your favorite dry rub seasoning or sauce to test out how being smoked improves the flavor.

How To Make Smoked Chicken Breast
This recipe is really basic and as we stated above, you can switch out the seasonings to create the best experience for your taste buds.
We’ve provided specific instructions below for those who are using a Pit Boss Pellet Grill. The most noteworthy difference when it comes to using the Pit Boss Pellet Grill versus some of the others is that you can expose the fire box to create a sear zone. This allows you to get more of a grill-like char on your food. Simply leave the gate closed while smoking and then open it up once the grill is up to 350 to get that grill like char on your meat.
For those who are using a different smoker/pellet grill, the slide gate option may not apply.

Common Questions
We’re going to answer some of your common questions when it comes to smoking your chicken breast. If there are additional questions we can help you with, leave them in the comments below.
How long does it take to smoke chicken breast?
Our recipe takes about 90 minutes to cook your smoked chicken breast. As we’ve stated below in our recipe, you can smoke for a longer period of time if you want even more of a smoky flavor. I suggest starting with our timing and then changing from there if you desire more of the smoke flavor.
What temperature do you smoke chicken at?
When it comes to smoking on your Pit Boss, you can set the pellet grill to 180 degrees with the smoke setting. We suggest smoking at this temperature for about an hour and then cranking the heat up to finish.
Increasing the temperature to 350 to finish the chicken is really important if you desire moist, tender chicken. Smoking your chicken breast for too long can make it tough which is not typically what you’re going for.
Is Smoked Chicken Breast Good Left Over?
Absolutely. As we share above, we like to smoked extra chicken breast for meal prepping. We use this on top of salads or with a side of steamed veggies for a quick, easy meal. We also will shred the chicken breast and use it in our smoked chicken salad recipe. One additional way to use is in a buffalo dip recipe. We’ll work on one and get it back to you shortly.
Do not forget this can be shredded and frozen in a freezer bag to use at a later time. If freezing, I highly suggest shredded so that its available for easy use. I mean, can you imagine, smoked chicken noodle soup?! A perfect way to get your smoky fix during colder months when you don’t want o cook outside.
Be sure to check out some of our other recipes below!
Can’t get enough of that delicious smoky flavor? Try some of our other recipes linked below.
Everything Bagel Smoked Cream Cheese
Also, be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss what’s next. We’re working on long over night recipes that are perfect for back yard get togethers and simpler recipes like our brand new Smoked S’mores Brownie recipe. If we can dream it, we’ll be sharing it with you!
You can find our link to sign up to the right of this post. We promise, we won’t spam you. Our goal is to start sending a monthly newsletter out in November of 2022 sharing all of our new creations with all the smoke lovers out there.
Smoked Chicken Breast
Ingredients
- 2 – 3 Chicken Breast
- 1/4 tsp Olive Oil
- 1/8 tsp Salt
- 1/8 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1/8 tsp Pepper
- 1/8 tsp Paprika
Instructions
- Turn on smoker and set to 180 degrees. *If using a Pit Boss Pellet Grill and you need specific instructions, see notes at bottom of recipe
- Trim fat from chicken breast.
- Coat chicken with olive oil. Season with remaining ingredients.
- Place chicken on smoker and cook until the temperature is about 130 degrees (around 1 hour). Depending on how much smoke flavor you prefer, you can adjust the time spent at this temperature.
- Turn temperature up to 350 degrees. If using a Pit Boss Pellet Grill, open the slide gate. Cook until chicken internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, turning chicken over every couple of minutes.
- Remove from smoker and let rest at least 5 minutes.
Notes




The Smoked Kings
Less about us and more about the food. We want to focus on what we all really care about - smoking delicious meals to enjoy with our family & friends. We perfect the recipes, you make the memories.
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Comments (1)
Carlton Ferroni
July 22, 2022 at 5:04 pm
Thanks for writing this great article without doubts is very useful