How To Break Down A Whole Chicken
Nextdoorganics started offering meat options in our weekly CSA packages this summer. The varieties are endless; you can mix and match ground beef, steak, whole chickens, chicken parts, pork chops, bacon, seafood and more.
Learn more about our meat packages here.
You can order whole chickens or chicken parts through Nextdoorganics. All our chicken is locally sourced, pastured and fed grass and grubs with non-GMO feed in the winter.
Related: What To Know When Cooking With Pumpkin
But what do you do with a whole chicken, aside from roasting it? If you know how to deconstruct a chicken, the dinner opportunities are endless. Plus, you’ll save money and get bones for chicken stock in the process. Sounds like a win win.
What You’ll Need:
A whole chicken (get one in our webstore)
Cutting board
Kitchen scissors
A good chef’s knife
Related: Link Love: Mark Bittman’s Best Easy Recipes
How To Deconstruct A Chicken:
1. Remove the backbone.
- Lay the chicken breast side down.
- Find the tip of the backbone by the chicken’s cavity.
- With your knife or kitchen scissors, cut through both sides up to the neck.
- Remove the entire backbone (but keep it to make stock).
- Find the breastbone, a small, white, circular bone opposite where the backbone used to be.
- With your knife, crack the breast bone.
- Lay your chicken flat.
2. Take off the wings.
- With your knife, cut a slit between the wing and body.
- Rotate the wing, feeling for the joint with your knife.
- Twist and slice through the joint.
- To split the wings in two, find the second joint and similarly twist and cut through with your knife.
3. Take off the legs.
- With your knife, cut through the meat and skin to remove the legs.
- To split the drumstick and thigh, find the joint with your knife and cut through.
4. Butcher the breast.
- Pushing down on your knife, split the breasts in two.
- To cut the breasts in half, simply press down on your knife to crack through the breastbone again.
Need to see it in action? Watch Mark Bittman’s video on the New York Times. Or, check out Serious Eat’s picture-heavy guide.
