Pounding chicken neatly

March 18, 2022 8:36 AM

Do you have a low mess, low waste way to flatten chicken?

I always feel like I am making a huge mess and/or wasting plastic when I pound out chicken. I don't want to splash my whole counter top with raw meat and I would rather not waste an entire plastic bag on one meal. Should I butterfly first? Is there something reusable I can just throw in the dishwasher that will survive being tenderized on a weekly basis?

posted by soelo to Food & Drink (18 answers total)

Growing up my mom would stick the chicken inside a large paper lunch sack and pound inside of it, using it like a vent hood. It's still wasteful, but it's wasteful with paper.
posted by phunniemee at 8:42 AM on March 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

I have a thick and flexible silicone "silpat" that I use--I put the chicken on a cutting board, layer the silpat over it, and bang away with a rolling pin. It works pretty well and avoids plastic waste, but the downside is you can't really see what you're doing like you can with a sheet of plastic wrap or a bag, so I've found that it takes a little bit of practice.
posted by tybstar at 8:47 AM on March 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

You can get gallon or 2-gallon (right now all the ones I can find on amazon can't ship to California, which yikes) silicone zip-top bags, which would be the best way to do this that is washable. I have long done it in regular ziplocs but yeah, it's super wasteful.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:49 AM on March 18, 2022

I sandwich the meat between a cutting board and the plastic wrap the meat came in from the store.

Most of the mess, I find, comes from hammering too hard: more whacks with less force is a lot tidier.
posted by ook at 8:49 AM on March 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

(Butterflying also works but gives a very different texture; part of the point of pulling out the hammer is to break up those muscle fibers.)
posted by ook at 8:52 AM on March 18, 2022

We rationalize it by doing a bunch of chicken at once, so the plastic wrap is used as many times as possible.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:09 AM on March 18, 2022

I also find putting it between a dishwasher-safe cutting board and a single layer of plastic wrap to be the way to go. Seconding lots of lighter blows instead of a few heavy ones.
posted by supercres at 9:37 AM on March 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

We have some plastic, zip-top bags hanging around the freezer that are empty or nearly empty and have held things like bread or cheese or maybe dough or pastries. I would probably select one that had been around a while and use that and then retire it to the garbage. (But I don't pound much chicken so this may still go through more plastic than you'd like.)
posted by fruitslinger at 9:50 AM on March 18, 2022

Agreeing with those who note technique/pounding force make a difference. I have a dedicated poultry cutting board, and I flatten using an actual meat mallet, moderate force, and with the chicken breast positioned in the center of the board. I don’t bother with a layer of plastic, as I so rarely have a problem with chicken leaving the cutting board.
posted by little mouth at 10:03 AM on March 18, 2022

Save the inner wax bags from boxes of cereal or crackers and use those instead. Look at what's already destined for the trash and save it. Bags from chips? Large cereal bags? Plastic bags from bread?
posted by hydra77 at 10:05 AM on March 18, 2022 [9 favorites]

I use a meat mallet and place the meat between a folded section of parchment paper. Butcher paper would probably also work
posted by sara is disenchanted at 10:36 AM on March 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

Put them inside two or three nested Walmart bags. And if you don't have any Walmart bags, just think about Walmart and a big knot of them will appear inside your pantry.
posted by credulous at 10:38 AM on March 18, 2022

Yup cover cutting board with parchment paper, put chicken on top, fold paper over, bash away, no mess.
posted by heavenknows at 10:46 AM on March 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

I don’t bother with a covering and have never had an issue with chicken bits escaping anywhere. As long as it’s dry, it’s fine. Note that I lean toward the scrupulously clean end of the spectrum.
posted by HotToddy at 11:01 AM on March 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

I don't whack the chicken. I press down on the flat side of the spiked mallet and wiggle it as well. It's more physical work but it reduces the amount of chicken I have to clean off of the coffee maker.

I briefly tried wax paper and plaatic wrap but gave up quickly when it shredded into the meat.
posted by teddywookie at 11:39 AM on March 18, 2022

Whack it firmly with the bottom of a small oval cast iron fajita pan, rinse off the bottom and dry over flame. I use a flexible cutting board over the chopping block under it, which I replace periodically (as it warps in the DW).

Mallets tend to make bits fly because they're smaller than the cutlet so the edges bite in. Also shredding any paper or plastic. (Or bc it's actually a tenderizer, with blunt teeth.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:56 PM on March 18, 2022

+1 for parchment paper; it's tougher than wax or plastic. I personally wouldn't use the inner wax bags from boxes of cereal; some cereal companies add BHA or BHT to the packaging. Recently General Mills removed BHT from their cereal packaging. They don't allow BHT in cereal packages in Europe.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 2:45 PM on March 18, 2022

I haven’t done this for a long time, but I would use a shallow and very sturdy stainless steel pan, such as a Vollrath 8132 (12"x7.5”x2”) with a layer of butcher paper over the chicken when spatter was possible.

The only problem I can foresee is that you would need a mallet with a striking surface that extended at least 2-2.5” beyond the handle.
posted by jamjam at 3:04 PM on March 18, 2022