How to Bone a Chicken Breast

The more work done to prepare chicken, the more it costs per pound: skinless, boneless breasts are much more expensive than the bone-in variety. You can save money by cutting and boning chicken breasts yourself - or consider cooking them with the bones intact, which many chefs believe improves the flavor of the meat.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• chicken
• Sharpening Steels
• Groceries
• Boning Knives
• Cutting Boards

1. Cook the chicken breast with bones intact. They protect the meat as it cooks, which helps keep it juicy, and they help the breast retain its shape.

2. If you want to cook with boneless breasts, place the chicken breast skin-side down on a clean cutting board. The bones will face up.

3. 

   Look for the rib bones. Breasts sold with the bones attached still retain the ribs and part of the breastbone.

4. Hold the breast by the rib cage, and use the very tip of the knife to make a thin incision between the ribs and the meat of the breast.

5. 

   Use the tip of the knife to make small cuts across the rib cage, between the ribs and the meat, so you gradually separate the meat along the entire length of the rib cage.

6. Follow the contours of the rib cage with the tip of the knife, holding the breast by the ribs.

7. 

   Continue making small cuts until the meat has completely separated from the bone.

8. The meat is now ready for your recipes; pull the skin off if you want.

9. Save the bones for stock, or discard them.

Tips & Warnings

• When you're done cutting raw chicken, be sure to thoroughly clean everything the chicken touched.

• A boning knife is best for cutting chicken. Boning knives have thin, flexible blades about six inches long that can maneuver around the bird's small bones.

• Deboning a whole chicken isn't much more time-consuming than deboning the breasts. Consider saving money and having more chicken by buying whole chickens and cutting them yourself. (See "How to Bone a Whole Chicken.")

• Sharp knives are best for cutting chicken, so be sure to watch what you're doing and keep your fingers away from the blade.