How to Butterfly a Chicken

A butterflied chicken is a great dish for any barbecue. This preparation technique allows a whole broiler or fryer chicken to lie flat on the grill, cook evenly and look great. To butterfly a chicken, you must remove both the backbone and breastbone, leaving the chicken flattened. Follow these steps to butterfly a chicken for your next barbecue.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Place the whole chicken breast side down with the drumsticks pointing towards you. The backbone is now on top, and you can feel it running down the center of the chicken.

2. Hold the tail, or flap of skin, that is pointing towards you and cut along each side of the backbone with a pair of kitchen shears. Cut all the way through, from end to end on each side, and remove the entire backbone. You are cutting through ribs, which is the reason for the crunching sound.

3. Turn the now open chicken 180 degrees so the drumsticks point away from you.

4. Use a paring knife to make a cut through the piece of white cartilage, or gristle, covering the breastbone. It's located in the cavity of the chicken on the end facing you.

5. Grasp each side of the chicken and bend the carcass backwards at the line of the cut made in Step 4. Bend until you hear a crack. This exposes the breastbone.

6. Run a finger along each side of the breastbone all the way to the end of it to separate the bone from the meat. The breastbone runs down the center of the chicken. Once separated, remove the entire breastbone.

7. Push flat to butterfly the chicken and remove any excess fat.

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't want to remove the breastbone, you can simply remove the backbone, turn the chicken over and press down on the center of the breasts. This breaks the chicken's sternum and some ribs in order to make it lie quite flat.
• When you first butterfly a chicken, the breastbone may break instead of coming out in one piece. It takes practice to master a clean breastbone removal.

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[presnick]

on 3/4/2008 Thank you! I've done a LOT of cooking, but I'd never butterflied a chicken.
I had a little trouble getting the breastbone out; I wasn't sure whether to cut it crosswise or lengthwise.
It DID come out, in any case.
I would have to say, having good poultry shears made this incredibly easy.
I'll be doing it again soon! It's in the oven now, resting on a bed of stuffing. Between the stuffing and the chicken, it was all in the oven in 20 minutes!