Chicken dishes are very popular not only among those who have decided to devote their lives to diets. You can cook a lot of different delicious dishes from chicken, both for the everyday table and for the holidays. The only thing that somewhat confuses less experienced housewives is how to cut chicken correctly so that the pieces in the dish are even, neat and look aesthetically pleasing.

For those who are completely unfamiliar with the process, there is one “tricky” tip: you can bake the whole “bird” and, after serving it to the table, ask the man to divide the finished dish into portions. Well, if the menu says stuffed chicken, chicken roll or stewed chicken pieces, then you’ll have to tinker with it yourself. And to help anyone who doubts their abilities, a whole set of tips on how to cut up a chicken carcass.

Standard cutting scheme

There are several ways to cut a whole chicken. Their total number is divided into methods of dividing the carcass into parts and methods of separating meat from bones.

Dividing into parts usually involves obtaining eight pieces of chicken, and separation from the bones results in a carcass that is as whole as possible and not spoiled by unnecessary cuts and tears, completely devoid of a frame.

Common to all methods of action:

• thoroughly wash and gut the chicken;
• cut the carcass correctly and evenly;
• separate the wings (since it is very inconvenient to separate the bones from this part of the chicken, even if stuffing or preparing a roll, it is better to get rid of the wings).

• separate the legs;
• cut the legs into shin and femur parts;
• separate the breast.

If you need to remove the bones from the carcass, leaving the meat and skin intact (this is a way to cut chicken for rolls), you can do it in an open way: through a cut in the breast or back.

Traditional method: eight pieces of chicken

This cutting method is suitable for barbecuing, baking and stewing chicken.

Tools: sharp knife and kitchen scissors.

Even if you are not entirely sure how to cut a chicken, in this case everything will work out correctly, since the essence of the process is to separate the “protruding” parts (legs and wings) from the carcass and divide the remaining part into portioned pieces.

In half

Another popular method is cutting the chicken in half. Most housewives know and can do how to cut up a chicken to cook tobacco chicken. We will repeat for them, and teach the inexperienced.

1. Position the chicken in the traditional manner - breast side up and, holding the tail, make cuts on both sides of the spine. Remove the spine.
2. Make an incision into the breast bone (what is called the keel) and then open the carcass to the sides. The keel can be removed by simply pulling it out of the flesh.
3. The chicken can be left open, or it can be divided lengthwise into two even parts - depending on what recipe needs to be implemented.

Removing bones

Housewives call this process the most difficult when cutting poultry. The bone and meat hold on to each other quite tightly, and the goal of the cook is to separate them so carefully as not to damage the skin and, as a result, prepare an aesthetically pleasing dish.

Removing bones is the most labor-intensive stage of cutting that requires attention and caution.

How to cut up a chicken for a roll, how to preserve the integrity of the skin for a stuffed bird, how to ensure maximum presentation of the finished dish? Only by very carefully getting rid of the frame.

There are two known methods: open and closed. The first involves one “through” cut, and the second (it is more complex) is based on turning the carcass inside out, like a stocking.

Open way

You need to start cutting along the back, since there is less meat in this part of the chicken, and the ribs are closer to the surface.

1. Using a sharp knife blade, separate the meat from the body, starting from the tail area.
2. When cutting the meat from the ribs, you need to simultaneously work on both the leg and the wing, breaking them off at the part where they connect to the frame.
3. Meat with skin on the leg must be removed using the stocking method.
4. As for the bones in the wings, removing them is so difficult and inconvenient that it is easier to simply remove the wing if the recipe does not require the presence of this part of the chicken in the finished dish.

Closed method

To understand how to cut a chicken from the bones using the closed method, just remember turning the uncomfortable heavy items in your wardrobe inside out. These are very similar processes. Only in the case of a chicken, you also need to trim the bones, remove the tendons, and make sure that the “bird” doesn’t decide to tear itself.

1. The beginning of cutting is the place of evisceration. It is necessary to carefully trim the tail on both sides (but not remove it), exposing the ischium.
2. Gradually cutting the meat in a circle, continue to “turn” the chicken, exposing more and more of the skeleton.
3. At the junction of the legs with the skeleton, it is necessary to separate them from the main part of the carcass with a sharp and precise movement and continue turning the chicken further; you can work on the legs later.
4. Separate the fillet from the keel, break off the wings along the joint line. Again, the wings can be removed due to the extreme difficulty of deboning.
5. It is necessary to peel the meat and skin from the legs in a circle, turning them inside out and cutting off the bones at the joints.

Sanitary standards

The main thing in preparing a carcass is not only how to cut the chicken, that is, the process itself, but also the conditions in which it is produced.

The board for raw meat should be used exclusively for its intended purpose, otherwise troubles cannot be avoided in the form of possible contamination of other products with bacteria.

The cutting knife must be clean and always sharp.

Gloves when cutting poultry are needed to protect against the same bacteria present in raw meat, and when cutting finished poultry, they will protect your hands from burns.

A truism: the table and kitchen utensils must be washed in hot water before and after cutting.

Content:

Of course, chicken breeders cut up freshly slaughtered birds. However, most people have to deal with frozen gutted carcasses from the supermarket. And, before you start cutting them, you need to defrost them. But it is not worth doing this using various accelerated methods, such as pouring boiling water over it or placing it in a hot oven, since this makes the meat less tasty and tougher.

It is best to defrost slowly, placing the carcass on the refrigerator shelf. Thus, a one and a half kilogram chicken can be defrosted within a day. You can also place the chicken under running cold water. At the same time, in order to defrost 500 grams of meat it will take a full 30 minutes.

If speeding up the process is still necessary, then you can resort to using a microwave according to the following scheme: 2 minutes in the oven, 2 minutes break and again 2 minutes in the oven.

Cutting a gutted carcass

Most often, the chicken is cut into 8 parts:

1. A pair of shins.
2. A pair of thighs.
3. A pair of wings.
4. Two halves of breast.

To cut the carcass, you can use special scissors (secateurs) or a large sharp knife.

Sequence of work

All manipulations should be performed in a certain sequence:

1. Place the carcass on a cutting board, breast side up.
2. Using scissors, an incision is made from below, clearly in the middle of the breast.
3. Unfold the carcass and cut out the spine. Since this structure contains a large number of bones and very little meat, it is used to cook broth.
4. Pull one leg to the side and cut the skin along the body. Holding the chicken’s thigh with one hand and its carcass with the other, twist its leg up, tearing the limb off the body. Thanks to this manipulation, the thigh will come out of the hip joint. Since the joint is torn, it is very easy to cut off the leg from the body to the very tail. The separation of the second ham is carried out in exactly the same way.
5. Next, you should separate the wings from the body. For this purpose, we feel the junction of the wing and the carcass, determining the place where the head of the bone enters the joint and cut along the joint.
6. The next step is to separate the breast from the back. The direction of the incision is determined by the white line, consisting of adipose tissue, along which the sternum is connected to the ribs through cartilage tissue. We cut off the breast on the other side in the same way.
7. The bone, with cartilage on both sides, running the entire length of the center of the breast, must be carefully removed. To do this, cut the breast in its upper part, in the place where the two bones are located, exactly between them. The incision is made to the bone, which has a darker color.
8. To remove the sternum along with the cartilages to which the ribs were attached, you should pry it with both thumbs, as if breaking the breast in half. Then, with a little force, you need to push the bone up, pushing your fingers under it. After this, without removing your fingers, the bone with cartilage must be pushed out and squeezed out of the breast.
9. When the cartilage is almost completely removed from the meat, you should grab the bone and not squeeze it out of the meat, but gently pull it. As a result, both bone and cartilage will be removed from the soft tissue.
10. Divide the breast in half. The ribs remain on its inner part. They need to be removed by carefully cutting them off with a sharp knife. The result will be chicken fillet. It can be left as is, or it can be divided into parts.
11. The next step is to further separate the chicken legs into drumsticks and thighs. The incision is made along the joint.
12. The wings should also be given a more neat and appetizing appearance.

This completes the cutting of frozen gutted chicken from the supermarket. The result was eight pieces, not counting the bones, cartilage and back, which can also be used, for example, to make chicken soup.

Each piece is thoroughly washed under running water and lightly dried with a waffle towel.

Cutting fresh, uneviscerated poultry

The sequence of work with, in fact, a semi-finished product was discussed above. Now let’s figure out what additional work will have to be done with fresh chicken:

1. The very first manipulation is plucking feathers from the carcass. At home, there is no special equipment with which this process can be mechanized. Therefore, you will have to work manually. With one hand you need to take the chicken by the paws, and with the other at this time, sharply pull out all the feathers in a row from the paws to the head.
2. When removing feathers, you need to ensure that their tips do not break off and remain in the skin. However, such cases occur almost always. And in order to get rid of these ends, you should pull them out with tweezers.
3. After cleaning the feathers, the carcass is burned to destroy any remaining fluff. This is done using a gas stove, turning the carcass over a strong fire or a burning sheet of paper rolled into a tube. This manipulation should be carried out with the windows open, since the smell of burnt fluff is simply disgusting. To completely remove even the smallest fluff, you need to rub the chicken carcass with flour before firing.
4. The next stage is gutting the bird. For this purpose, a small incision is made on the abdomen near the cloaca, through which all the insides are removed. After removing the giblets, it should be rinsed from the inside with a stream of running cold water. The skin of the chicken should be cleaned with a soft brush.
5. The entrails are divided into inedible and edible (heart, stomach, liver) parts. The stomach must be cleaned immediately, for which it is cut, the contents are thrown out, and the inner lining is removed.
6. If the chicken is not planned to be cooked immediately after cutting, then all edible giblets are placed through the cut back inside the carcass.
7. The bird's head is cut off and the throat tube is removed from the neck.
8. The paws are cut off along the folds. Further cutting of the carcass is described in the previous section.

After you have handled the slaughter and plucking yourself, the carcass must be prepared for use for culinary purposes. Information on how to properly cut up a chicken will be useful even if you don’t have your own backyard. As a rule, by purchasing a whole carcass rather than portioned pieces, you can save a lot on cutting it up.

Preparing the carcass for cutting - gutting

To gut a chicken, you will need a sharp knife, containers for giblets and waste, and a cutting board. The plucked carcass is placed on it with its paws up and the process begins.

Gutting a chicken can be divided into several successive stages:

1. Removing paws. This is done by cutting the tendons with a sharp knife, which are pre-tensioned by bending the leg at the knee joint. You need to cut with a gentle movement, without pressing.
2. A circular incision around the anus. It is very important to cut through the skin without touching the internal organs.
3. Incision of the surface of the skin along the central line of the abdomen, which runs from the keel of the chicken to the anus. Cut as carefully as possible down to the hymen surrounding the intestines. When cutting chicken, you need to be careful not to touch the contents of the abdominal cavity with the tip. If you are not sure of the accuracy of the movements, after cutting, the remaining tissue can be torn with your hands.
4. Pull out the intestines along with the anus and throw them into waste.
5. After this, remove the liver and gizzard, having previously trimmed them at the junction with the chicken carcass. When manipulating the liver, do not crush the spleen. It is separated after removal from the carcass and sent to waste. The liver and stomach are also useful for culinary masterpieces.
6. Pull out the goiter. The easiest way is if the chicken was on a starvation diet before slaughter. Then simply remove the crop along with the esophagus. Otherwise, cut the neck before gutting the chicken. Clean the crop thoroughly. Only then proceed to further actions. The neck will also have to be cut if the slaughter was carried out internally: there is no other way to get the goiter.
7. For roosters, be sure to remove the testes from the tail. To do this, it is incised and the yellow glands are carefully removed. The chicken's ovaries, which are located inside, need to be removed.
8. At the last moment, the heart and lungs are removed from the carcass.

The stomach is subjected to additional cleaning: first it is cut, then it is turned inside out, then it is cleaned of food debris and the inner rough layer is completely removed. Then the giblets and chicken carcass are thoroughly washed. Preferably under running water.

The chicken should be gutted immediately after plucking. This way, you will be able to avoid unwanted processes that, as a rule, begin in the intestines, esophagus or goiter and provoke spoilage of meat. After gutting, you can cut the carcass.

Cutting chicken into portions

Of course, the carcass does not have to be cut into pieces. It can also be prepared in its entirety. For example, bake with a golden crust. However, if you cut it into pieces, the scope for creativity will be much wider.

You can cut chicken in different ways. Everyone chooses the most convenient for themselves. Nobody forbids you to improve cutting schemes to suit your specific needs. It is important to do this immediately after gutting, and then use the fresh bird for cooking or freeze it.

To properly cut a chicken you will need experience and a steady hand. Over time, the process will become automatic.

One of the common ways to cut chicken into portioned pieces will require consistent implementation of the following recommendations:

1. The chicken carcass is placed on a cutting board, feet up. Each of them is pressed to a cutting board in turn, and deep cuts are made at the junction with the body. Then the legs are turned with the joint outward. If you cut the tendon, you will end up with large pieces that need to be cut further.
2. Place the legs on the table and cut into pieces: drumstick separately, thigh separately. To do this, you need to straighten it, feel the fold and cut along it to the junction of the bones.
3. The wings are separated in the same way. They need to be bent, find with your hand the junction with the shoulder girdle and cut along it.
4. After this, cut the chicken carcass into two equal parts: first along the spine, then along the breast.
5. At the final stage, it is necessary to cut the resulting parts lengthwise again in order to finally separate the breast and back.

Once you have managed to cut the chicken into pieces, be sure to rinse all parts under running water.

How to separate meat from bones

The aerobatics of cutting chicken is separating the bones from the meat while maintaining the attractive appearance of the carcass or portioned pieces. Even if you don’t manage to cut it beautifully the first time, the resulting parts can be used in minced meat or chopped cutlets.

Cutting chicken this way will require a sharp knife, scissors and a cutting board. This process can be represented step by step as follows:

1. Place the carcass on its stomach.
2. Cut the skin along the spine on both sides. In this case, it is necessary to clean off the muscle tissue as much as possible.
3. Cut the connective tissue that holds the sternum and spine bones together. In addition, it is necessary to cut the cartilage of the shoulder and femoral girdle. You can use scissors for this. To facilitate the process, the leg or shoulder is carefully twisted, exposing the cartilage tissue.
4. Carefully remove the ridge. In this case, it is necessary to carefully cut off the remaining muscle fibers from the surface.
5. The leg bones are removed one at a time, starting with the femur. Cut the fabrics where they join. You can pull them out with a knife, gradually clearing the bones and helping yourself with your hands.
6. Cut the wings from the chicken carcass. There is too little muscle on them, so separating them from the bones does not make sense.
7. Rinse the cut carcass under running water.

Of course, it is much easier to separate the meat from the bones when the chicken carcass has already been cut into pieces. However, the kitchen is a place of constant experimentation and the birth of new masterpieces and ideas. Even a banal chicken fillet can be prepared for guests in such a way that they will remember your dish all their lives.

At first, cutting up chicken will require a lot of effort. However, armed with the necessary knowledge, you can master this art with minimal losses, showing off the perfect pieces in your culinary masterpieces. Homemade chicken has a special taste, once you try it, you are unlikely to return to store-bought chicken, having once and for all made a choice in favor of natural farming.

Yes, we often have to cook chicken dishes. And not only the first and second courses. After all, there are a lot of recipes for salads and baked goods involving fillet. What about kebabs made from wings or legs? Just have time to come up with recipes and cut pieces of different sizes and designs.

What, they turn out different and uneven for you? No problem. Once you learn how to properly cut a chicken carcass, the problem will go away. There are no special secrets. But there are rules - both generally accepted (that is, the classic cutting into eight fragments), and those that in practice, in the process of preparing various dishes, are already in stock for everyone who loves to cook.

Why is it so important to learn how to properly cut up a chicken?

By learning how to properly cut a chicken carcass, we save a lot of time and nerves (after all, we don’t make our family wait for a long time). Well, we get a lot of conveniences.

1. Chicken preparations can be made very quickly if you have the knowledge.
2. You can immediately prepare food from them, or you can stock up for later. Let's say, take several carcasses at once. Then cut them accordingly (you can schedule them for the week according to meals) and put them in the freezer.
3. In the freezer, if you label each set and arrange it conveniently, it will be easy to find the right type of product. For example, put soup sets on the left, in the middle - preparations, on the right - for baking, salads, etc.

So, we have at our disposal:

• Chicken carcass (gutted)
• Sharp knives and scissors
• Cutting board
• Sample action plan

The carcass and everything else is there. No plan? Let's make it up. You can make a different number of pieces from one chicken (preferably from several!).

And each will be involved in different ways:

• - from it you can make best stroganoff, cutlets, dumplings, zrazy, meatballs - if you grind the meat, and gorgeous chops, and puree soup, and much more.
• – and the soup will be excellent, and fried, and steamed, and boiled, and delicious crispy kebabs.
• Ham (whole and divided into thigh and drumstick) - can also be used for soup, for various main courses.
• Soup set - these are necks (and they can also be used as a separate meat dish), part of the wings, the skeleton itself with ribs and trimmings.

Detailed instructions for cutting a chicken carcass with photos

This instruction, especially given my experience, I think will be useful to many. Especially for novice housewives. After all, after two or three such procedures they will get the hang of it, and then the process will be convenient and more efficient. So, let's make a cut between the leg and the body.

Step 1. Make a cut between the leg and the body

Then you can do this - turning the bottom part up, separate it, and cut it off at the break point. Or this way - holding the leg, pull it slightly. Let's make a neat cut in this place, reaching the joints.

Step 2. Pull back the leg

After a neat circular cut all the way to the tail, we will get these two legs.

Step 3. Two legs

If the task is not to use a whole leg, you need to make an incision along the line of its joint. Carefully cut and we get two parts of the leg - the thigh and the drumstick.

Step 4. Thigh

Then you can remove the wings. There are also several ways. Separate the wing, grabbing some meat from the fillet. Or, having found the shoulder joint connecting the wings to the carcass, cut off the spine at this point. Or this way - turn the wing out at the joint and cut along the line of the joint, removing the tip of the wing.

Step 5. Wings

Fillet is an excellent part of the carcass. How to separate it? The process is complicated, especially if you need to get a beautiful piece. But you can get your hands on it! And here, too, there are several tricks. The first is to cut the flesh along the cartilage, gently press the meat with your fingers and carefully separate it from the bone and ribs.

Step 6. Cut along the breast

Or, after removing the skin, make an incision in the front (as in the photo) along the cartilaginous part of the breast. Then move the knife along the ribs and the entire skeleton. And cut in half. You can generally give it the desired shape if the recipe requires it (with a steak, say).

Step 7. Fillet

You can do it differently. With the breast side up, cut off the side part (along the ribs) on both sides with scissors. Having cut off from the back, we will continue to separate the fillet itself using a knife - going from the cartilaginous part, along the ribs. In addition, we will get a wonderful soup set from a bone with cartilage, parts of wings and rump.

Step 8. Soup set

That's all. We got 2 fillets (they can also be cut in half, or further divided into slices, strips, etc.), 2 thighs, drumsticks and wings each), as well as a soup set. And I suggest a few more ways...

2 simple and quick ways to cut up a chicken carcass

Method No. 1 . Suitable for immediately cooking something, say, just a ham. Place the carcass, washed and thoroughly dried with a towel, belly up (it’s easier to cut here because it’s cartilage). First, we’ll break it in half, cutting it across the middle (if along, you’ll get two pieces of tobacco chicken). Cut the upper part with a knife along the breast, reaching the back. Here are 2 more parts. After removing excess fat, we also divide the bottom one in half - from top to bottom. You will get 2 legs. That's it, you can cook.

Today I have a bit of a bloodthirsty post. I want to show you how to cut up a domestic chicken, how to remove excess innards that are not edible, and how to process the ones we need. After all, it is not always sold in the form in which factory-made chicken is sold.

Before creating the post, I looked at what was on the Internet and couldn’t find any similar posts. That’s why I decided to hold such a unique, slightly bloodthirsty master class. I already wrote.

When you need to prepare a tasty and rich chicken broth, it is better to buy chicken raised in the wild and on natural feed. The meat of such chicken is a little tougher than factory-made chicken, but it has a number of advantages that factory-made chickens do not have.

Homemade chicken broth is much more nutritious and healthier. And in order to cook the broth, the chicken needs to be disassembled. After all, on the market they sell it entirely, removing only unnecessary entrails, and not all of it.

How to cut up homemade chicken. Master class with step-by-step photos

Before cutting up a homemade chicken, it can and should even be lightly scorched over a fire to remove any small remaining fluff. If you have an electric stove, then this procedure can be done with a regular lighter.

In order to remove the entrails from the chicken, you need to place it on its back on a cutting board, carefully cut along the keel bone (this bone runs along the chicken breast and protrudes upward).

Using your hand, carefully remove the fat, if any, the stomach and liver with gall bladder. You need to make sure that the gall bladder does not burst, otherwise the meat will become bitter. Separate the chicken fat.

Chicken fat should not be thrown away, as it can not only add flavor to chicken cutlets, for example, but also saturate your body with healthy unsaturated acids, which are necessary for cell growth and renewal, as well as for strengthening bones.

From the liver we carefully cut off the gallbladder and everything that you don’t like. If bile suddenly spills, it is better to throw away the liver, it will still be spoiled.

The chicken stomach needs to be cleaned.

To do this, you need to tap it on both sides with the flat surface of a knife, and then cut along the protruding edge and unfold it.

Remove any remaining food from it and remove the yellow film.

That's it, the chicken stomach can be washed and boiled in broth.

Cut the skin on the neck lengthwise and remove the esophagus with the pouch and the trachea. Thus, we can assume that the insides of the chicken have been removed.

How to cut homemade chicken into pieces

Now the simplest thing left is to cut the homemade chicken into pieces. Of course, it is not like factory-made, but this does not mean that it needs to be cooked entirely. I'm not a professional, but an amateur, so I don't pretend to be correct. I cut the chicken as best I can.

First you need to cut off the neck, wings and legs. Then cut off the legs.

The ends of the legs can be cut off, as shown in the photo.

Then remove from the tail the place where the chicken has accumulated fat, and cut the carcass in half, separating the tail.

You need to remove the lungs from the breast with your finger, they give a lot of foam during the cooking process and anything you don’t like, and cut the breast into pieces.

Master class - how to cut up homemade chicken, completed. All that remains is to prepare the broth.

Subscribe to updates so you don't miss anything. And for the most impatient, I can advise you to cook homemade chicken over low heat for at least 2 hours.