How to Process and Cook Chicken Carcass Cuts the Healthy Way
A guide to chicken carcass cuts: the main pieces, the best cooking method for each, how to spot a fresh carcass and the healthiest ways to cook chicken.
Before you can get good-quality chicken carcasses, it helps for farmers to first get to know the chicken's skeleton. Knowing how to process chicken carcass cuts speeds up the cutting process and gives you properly shaped pieces. You can also recover all the meat on the carcass, with nothing going to waste.
When processing a chicken carcass, it is generally divided into the following cuts:
- Wing
- Supreme
- Leg
- Thigh
- Breast
- Drumstick
- Meat attached
The chicken leg is usually cut into 4 pieces for steaming or casseroles. The drumstick, or lower leg, is best suited to fast food and grilled chicken. The thigh, or upper leg, is usually cooked with liquid, as in stuffing and braising. Breast and wing cuts are usually used for casseroles, stewing and roasting.
Also read How to Store Chicken Eggs After Collecting Them From the Coop
Good carcass meat also has certain traits to look for when choosing chicken cuts. It is best to choose a carcass from a bird that has just been slaughtered, plucked and gutted, because the cuts are still fresh. You can also spot a good carcass by its skin, which should be smooth, even and free of bruises. When checking whether a carcass is good, the leg is the cut to look at. A fresh carcass has legs that feel soft to the touch.
The carcass cuts most often used for cooking are the breast and the thigh. The breast does contain more meat than the thigh. Chicken breast meat has more fiber and is drier, while the thigh is richer and more savory. These two favorite cuts also differ in their nutritional content.
Also read How to Spot the Best Broiler Chicken Meat
Chicken, one of the main sources of animal protein, has more protein in the breast than in the thigh. Its carbohydrate and calorie content can go up depending on what you add when cooking, such as barbecue seasoning, honey glaze or a flour coating. Thigh cuts carry more fat than breast. If you want to cut down on fat, remove the chicken skin before cooking. The thigh also contains more iron.
Chicken is best steamed or boiled with seasonings that do not add cholesterol or fat. Cooked this way, the chicken is healthier, and your body gets the full benefit of the nutrients in the meat. Avoid frying chicken as much as possible, especially with a crispy, crunchy flour coating, because chicken cooked like that adds bad cholesterol and fat to the meat you eat.
