Chop a Chicken

Learning how to chop up a whole chicken will help cooks who are on a budget because whole chickens tend to cost less per pound than meat that has already been cut and portioned out.

Steps

Prepare the Chicken

Rinse the chicken and get rid of the giblets before you start to cut the pieces apart.

  1. Rinse the chicken under cool running water. Remember to rinse both the outside as well as the inside of the bird.
  2. Place the chicken, breast-side-up, on top of a cutting board. Use the cutting board you dedicate to handling raw animal products.
  3. Remove the neck and giblets from the cavity of the chicken. Discard them or save them for a future use.
  4. Cut away the large piece of fat that is attached to the opening of the chicken cavity.

Remove the Legs and Thighs

Cut through the thigh joint and then the knee joint to separate the legs and thighs from either side of the chicken.

  1. Cut through the skin that connects the leg to the body.
  2. Once you’ve located the thigh joint that connects the thigh to the body, hold the body of the chicken in your non-dominant hand and twist the leg up and out with your dominant hand. This should dislocate the hip joint.
  3. Cut the leg and thigh away from the chicken as one large piece by cutting down through the hip joint.
  4. Grasp the thigh in one hand and the leg in the other hand. Pull the leg down until the knee pops out of the joint.
  5. Cut through the knee joint to separate the thigh and the leg. Repeat the process on the other side before moving on to the wings.

Remove the Wings

Find the joint that connects the wing to the breast and slice through it to separate the wing.

  1. Turn the chicken over so that the back is facing upward.
  2. Locate the joint between the wing and the breast and cut between the joint to separate the wing. Repeat this step on the other side of the chicken.

Remove the Back

Instead of discarding the back, use the back to make chicken stock.

  1. Place your knife in the cavity that once held the giblets.
  2. Push the tip of the knife out through the top of the body where the neck used to be.
  3. Slice through the thin area around the shoulder joint, toward the outside of the chicken.
  4. Slice the bones of the rib cage while cutting parallel to the backbone.
  5. Slice through the shoulder joint and rib cage on the other side of the chicken.
  6. Bend the back away from the breast and slice through the shoulders. This will separate the back from the breast.

Separate the Breasts

Cutting down the sternum will split the breasts into two separate pieces.

  1. Cut downward along the length of the breastbone to separate the breasts into two pieces.
  2. Use the chicken pieces according to your recipe instructions.
  3. Finished.



Tips

  • You can reserve the back, neck and wingtips to use to prepare your own chicken stock. Consult a recipe for guidance.

Warnings

  • Raw chicken may carry a dangerous bacteria called salmonella. Wash your hands after handling raw chicken. Also, wash and sanitize your knife and your cutting board before using them for any other purpose.

Things You'll Need

  • Whole chicken
  • Cutting board
  • Knife

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Sources and Citations

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