I would put them in a covered dish in the microwave and zap them until the meat feels firm for the easiest approach. Cover the dish with some Saran wrap or waxed paper or even paper towel. Or I would roast or simmer them. Microwave and simmered in a seasoned liquid would give you the moistest chicken.

Cool. I never thought of microwaving them then simmering them. The recipe calls for chicken broth anyway, so there it is! Thanks!

I poach the chicken breast, cool, skim off the fat, then shred with two forks.

I do it the same way, Glenda.

I'd bake or boil... kind of depends on what exactly you are doing with the shredded chicken. If you will be making like a buffalo chicken dip and adding a sauce to it, I'd boil it. But if you will, more or less, be eating it as is shredded, like for tacos, I'd bake it (I think it tastes better and is more moist baked, but shreds better boiled/simmered - so if you are adding a heavy sauce to it, you may not care as much about the moistness and more about shred potential).

I poach, or put a chicken or pieces into the slow cooker, let it cook through while making its own broth.

I do have one recipe I make for chicken salad sandwiches though where I like the flavor of the chicken roasted so basically I bake for that one. (skin on for flavor while cooking, then remove it)

I know you said you don't want to buy a whole chicken, but personally, I would buy a rotisserie chicken. It's all cooked for you and sooo moist and tender! I'm sure you could find a use for the rest of the meat. :)

I'd simmer them, but WITH appropriate flavoring agents--onions, garlic, celery herbs and spices, depending upon how the chicken would be used. That way, I'd get nicely flavored chicken, and some broth I could strain, freeze and use for some other purpose.

I second what juellie said. Buy a rotisserie chicken. You can take the wings and carcass and made broth. Just throw it in a pot with water and let it stew. It's a nice rich broth if you add all the skin from the chicken.

With the rest of the chicken you can make chicken salad, stir-fry or use it in casseroles.

The price of chicken breasts being so high ($3.99 lb. here), it's cheaper to buy the rotisserie one. (On sale for $5.99 here this week.)

I poach chicken....but buying a rotisserie chicken is a good idea.

No, no, no--microwave OR simmer. Don't do both.

Sometimes, I will grill chicken breasts to use in a recipe. You get a totally different flavor from poaching.

I'm with Carla35 on this one. Bake or broil.

I do it like Azzalea. I stew bone-in chicken breasts in enough water to cover. While waiting for the water to come to a boil, I throw in a few peppercorns, a bay leaf, salt, some onion wedges and some celery (I just use the tops of the celery stalks that I would otherwise throw away). Maybe some other seasonings, depending on what I'm using the chicken for. After cooking, I let it cool a bit, then remove the chicken from the bone. And wonderful chicken stock to freeze and use in soups or sauces! It's so easy, too.

I'm sticking to poaching :o)

and freeze the stock!

There is a difference between poaching and simmering. I would not poach a chicken but simmer it. Found this online.

Poaching
Cooking in liquid with a temperature ranging from 140F to 180F is called poaching and is typically reserved for cooking very delicate items like eggs and fish.

At the correct temperature, the poaching liquid won't show any visible signs of bubbling at all, though small bubbles may form at the bottom of the pot. This means that the best way of checking that the temperature is correct is with an instant-read thermometer.

Simmering
Simmering is cooking in liquid that's a bit hotter than poaching from 180F to 205F. Here we will see bubbles forming and gently rising to the surface of the water, but the water is not yet at a full rolling boil.

Because it surrounds the food in water that maintains a more or less constant temperaure, simmering cooks food very evenly. It's an excellent choice for culinary preparations including stocks or soups, starchy items such as potatoes or pastas, and many others.

One of the downsides to cooking this way is that it can cause the food to lose vitamins and other nutrients by leaching into the cooking liquid.
Boiling
The hottest of these three stages is boiling, where the water reaches its highest possible temperature of 212F. It's actually the least likely of the three to be used for cooking. That's because the violent agitation caused by the rolling boil can be too rough on food and will often damage it.

Water at a full boil would be a bad choice for cooking an egg outside its shell, as we do when preparing poached eggs, because the agitation would cause the egg to fall apart. The same holds true for delicate fish as well as some pastas.

Sue

Well, I learned something new. I've always called it "poaching" but I've really been simmering my chicken breasts when I do them that way. Who knew?!! Thanks, Sue.

I do the simmer, too, but have always called it stewing. LOL

Way cheaper to use a rotisserie chicken here.
They are always so good, nice and tender and
very moist. I pick off all the meat and then
simmer the carcass with onion, celery, carrot
and some salt and pepper to make a nice broth.
I always freeze part of the broth. I divide
the chicken into what I need right away and
then freeze the rest.

You could use most any method you prefer, but the key is to not overcook it if you want it to shred nicely. For moist & tender chicken, I put it in the Nesco.

But for a small amount I might just grab a couple breasts from the deli.

I like the simmer/stewing method best. The chicken comes out moist.

As an alternative...and to save time, using a George Forman grill would've come in handy.

"I do the simmer, too, but have always called it stewing. LOL."

If you sear it first, then it's called braising. :)

I use to poach but the best flavor comes from roasting. I just did many packages of chicken bone in and skin on for best flavor. Roast at 350 45 min to an hour. Either shred or cube depending what you are using it for. Soups, shred, salads, cube. I then put the finished product (in my case, cubed) on a cookie sheet, freeze then put in baggies for future use. Chicken breasts were on sale last week for 99 cents a lb. I have lots of chicken in the freezer and when I need a quick dinner, I just have to take out a couple of cups and make my salad. Easy.

I would probably use my George Foreman grill and cook to proper temp then allow to cool and dice it all up...can't get much simpler than that. If I had no GF grill, I would put then in a skillet and seer on both sides then cover and reduce heat and cook until proper internal temp.(until done).