How to debone a chicken

[superchemicalgirl]

... seriously. We did it once before and left a lot of meat on the bone. Any good tutorials for this? Should we let them sit overnight in cold water before deboning? We just butchered a few hours ago.

Thanks for any help.

 

[homesteadapps]

If you are trying to save freezer space a simple method is to:

Cut off wings whole -- freeze a a dozen or two together.

Split thighs and debone -- basically one cut at the starting at the leg and coming up through the thigh, then cutting meat loose along the initial slice to the bone starting at the leg up through the thigh until its cut loose .

Cut away breast meat.


We then pack all the bones with meat into a stock pot and make stock. Once cooked the extra cooked meat can be used for soup, sandwiches, etc.

Each time you work with deboning it seams to get a little easer. Cutting along the natural muscles lines and joints helps a great deal.

 

[BoomChickaRocka]

the trick is to have a razor sharp knife. there is alot of stuff on youtube for this. the only tricky part is the thigh. use the knife to cut along the bone, use fingers to tear meat away from bone then use knife to cut tendons still holding onto meat. check out Joel Salatins videos about this on youtube, probably the best example ive seen showing how to make the boneless breast.

 

[annageckos]

It takes practice to see what works best for you. As you get better you will leave less meat on the bone. I would suggest watching a bunch of different videos on youtude.

Here is a video that I found helpful for deboning the breast.

 

[Tracydr]

I find the thighs fairly easy to filet but is there a way to debone the legs? I'd love to remove the leg meat without it being in little pieces.
I'd especially love to do this when I get sale turkeys around T-day. I'm hoping to make ground turkey and turkey sausage this year, now that I have a freezer.
I can do a nice job butterfly filleting a thigh. I think I learned from a you-tube video. They make lovely prices of meat for chicken tika. Marinate in yogurt/tika masala seasoning and grill. I use our enormous Cornish that I waited too long to butcher this summer for this.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Thanks for all the advice... we watched a few videos and managed to still suck at de-boning the chickens.

However, we make lemonade out of lemons or at least try to here.

I roasted all the "extra" carcass parts with some carrots, celery and onions and put them in a crock pot for 24 hours to make stock. I picked the remaining worthwhile meat out to freeze for soup, then strained the juice for stock to freeze. I'll be skimming the fat off later then putting tops on and freezing it since I have no idea how to can. The remaining bones and veggies are going in the chickens breakfast bowl for tomorrow. They are going to have a fantastic day. Thank goodness for this forum, I found all the instructions to do so on here. Love you guys!

 

[Evelle]

Quote:
i do the same thing i can get a good 3 at least meals with the stuff i dont get!!

i found this very informative one

hope it helps

 

[booker81]

When you skim the fat off, put it in a tupperware dish and keep in the fridge to add to potatoes or rice instead of butter. It's very tasty! It lasts about forever too

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Quote:
Great idea! Thank you. How much do you generally add? Like a tsp?

 

[booker81]

I swap out the equal amounts of butter for chicken fat. So, if you're making a big pot of mashed potatoes, instead of say, 4Tbs of butter, put in 4 Tbs of chicken fat. It gives it a extra rich flavor

I would only suggest it with rendered chicken fat - what you have floating on the top of your broth. Fresh fat isn't as handy

(I keep bacon fat too in the fridge - same thing. Just collect and strain off the fat from cooking plain bacon, and put it in a tupperware when cool enough. It goes nicely on cooked greens or cooked spinach).