How to quarter a chicken?

August 23, 2020 5:56 PM

Can anyone point me in the direction of a tutorial or video that explains in the most basic terms how to quarter a chicken?

I have been trying to learn to cook during the past month. My only experience in cooking things more complex than macaroni and cheese is making a simple quiche and making a somewhat edible lasagna. I am trying to follow a recipe that calls for quartering a chicken. Can someone provide me with a tutorial or something that walks through how to quarter a chicken in the most absolute basic terms? However basic you're thinking at this point, I would like something that is about two degrees more basic. Stuff that has confused me in other tutorials I've read: "Turn the chicken so the head is facing you" - I have no idea which way that is; "Use a knife to cut along the bone" - what kind of knife should I use? Which bone should I be cutting along?

posted by NoneOfTheAbove to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

Jacques Pepin is a classic for a reason, he's clear, sensible and walks you through how to take a chicken apart calmly. I hope that it's simple enough!

(He has a whole techniques series if you like that style of video)
posted by larthegreat at 6:01 PM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

I liked this video and I followed along with it at slower speed.It has little outline/diagrams of the parts to make it clear.
posted by tipsyBumblebee at 6:09 PM on August 23, 2020

Assuming these are cleaned and butchered, take comfort that the truly unpleasant part is done!

Make sure you have a sharp knife. Now watch tipsyBumblebee's video and this one. There will be other videos in the "up Next" if you're still not feeling confident about it.

Another way to approach this is to practice carving whole roasted chickens, which is much easier but gives you a good sense of where the bones are and how the muscles are attached.

This is also something that takes a little practice, so don't feel bad if you (heh) butcher it the first few times. You'll still end up with edible food.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:56 PM on August 23, 2020

America's Test Kitchen (and their affiliated sites, Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country) are really good for this sort of thing. Here is their very direct article on how to cut up a chicken for parts, with step-by-step photos (including showing you which way to orient the bird), and here is a related video showing the same thing.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 7:31 PM on August 23, 2020

Alton brown is where I learned; you can never have enough resources like this, even if the video quality isn't great. I increasingly like Serious Eats as a free alternative to Americas Test Kitchen. They actually take you through all the different ways to break a chicken down, not just quartering it.

Fair warning, this is a skill that requires practice. Don't give up. Taking it a few steps further to actually boning the chicken as well can save you a ton of money in the long run by buying whole birds instead of parts. And you're like, a step away from making homemade chicken broth, which is one of those things where the quality skyrockets when you make it yourself.
posted by furnace.heart at 8:29 PM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

Great suggestions so far. I would just add that I really like a boning knife for this - something like this works fine, it doesn't gotta be a Hattori Hanzo; and pay heed to the instructions to let the knife do the work. If you get frustrated and find yourself trying to sever an actual bone, you're doing it wrong and makin' it harder on yourself.
posted by ftm at 7:48 AM on August 24, 2020

Taking a step back: the reason this is hard - both in terms of practise, but also in terms of understanding the instructions you get when you google "how to quarter a chicken" - is that this kind of butchery isn't usually something a someone who has only been cooking for a month would be doing. There'll be a bunch of implicit assumptions that you already know your way around a chicken carcass, that you already have a good set of knives that are good for butchery (vs normal kitchen prep), that kind of thing. At this point, if your interest is basically in becoming a better cook, then you're far better off buying a pre-quartered chicken - two legs, two breasts, basically - and making the recipe from that instead.

Breaking down a chicken is definitely a great technical exercise - it's something you'd hope a chef in a professional kitchen could do with their eyes closed; for a domestic cook, it can be a skill worth acquiring, because a whole chicken is far, far cheaper to buy than a pre-butchered one - but if your goal at this point is to learn how to cook this particular recipe, then learning the butchery can definitely take a back seat for now.
posted by parm at 3:28 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yes to what parm said! I strongly second that. Also, it's generally easier to cook cut-up chickens than whole chickens because breast meat cooks much more quickly than dark meat. If you cut it up into piece, then you can usually cook the pieces that need more cooking longer without risking drying out the pieces that need to be cooked for less time.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:15 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]