How to Cut Up a Whole Chicken

Many people do not know how to cut up a whole chicken. It is a very easy thing to do once you learn how (and cheaper). As a bonus you get to keep the backs and wing tips for making chicken stock. Here's a simple way to cut up a chicken into 8 pieces or an optional 10.


Lay the chicken on the cutting board breast side up.

You can either remove the wings or legs first it is up to you. This time I removed the legs first.

Cut the legs at the joint like this:

Next cut the thighs at the joint:

Then remove the wings:

Don't forget to remove the tips and put them in your freezer in a zipper seal bag:

Now you have all the pieces remove and are left with just the body. Stand the body on end (butt side on the board) and cut down:

You might have a little difficult at the end but persevere and cut through:

Now you have the back and breasts separated. Put the back in the bag with the wing tips and freeze*

Now you need to slice down the middle of the breasts:

Push with the middle of your knife right through the breast bone:

If you want 10 pieces, you can cut the breasts in half:

See wasn't that easy??!!

Who is that ghostly shadow?? Could it be?? Santa???!! Naw it's just the Sous Chef playing photographer so I didn't have to keep washing chicken crud off my hands to take the pics.

*You can continually add chicken parts to the ones in the bag until you have enough to make stock (I know, I know I still haven't done a post on that yet).