This week I was able to purchase a roasting chicken for 69 cents per pound. But this bird weighs more than 7 pounds. That is more than two people should eat in a week.

So I shall cut this bird into many pieces and wrap them in freezer paper and store them in my food freezer.

The skeleton I shall boil with carrots, celery and onion. I will pick the small bits of meat from the bones and save the broth to make soup. This I shall can in pint jars to use for lunches with a handful of noodles added at cooking time.

The rest of the meat–two very large breast portions, the thighs and the drumsticks shall be further divided for meal size portions for two people, wrapped and labeled for content and date.

From this wonderful chicken we shall enjoy about four jars of soup and about eight to ten meals of vegetables with rice or potatoes. The fat recovered and saved by skimming the pot will be used to make biscuits.

By these means, I am able to have some meat with practically every meal and keep our food cost below 230 dollars per month, including occasional company for dinner.

For small families, a turkey or modern oven roaster chicken is too big and too much meat to cook at one time. They are however sometimes the most economical way to buy the meat. Knowing how to cut the whole bird down to reasonable pieces for two or three people can provide many meals at a very favorable cost.

How to Cut Up Fresh Poultry:

I am starting here with a whole fresh turkey but the steps apply also to a chicken.

This is the turkey as it comes from the wrapper.

Step 1: Start by removing the neck from the body cavity and the giblet package from under the skin flap in the front. Force the legs free of the clip that shows as wire here and sometimes is strong plastic. Remove the wire clip by squeezing the sides together. The plastic ones I cut with pruning shears.

Step 2: This step requires a very sharp knife to do a neat and easy job.

Grasp the wing on the first joint, pull it away from the body, make a cut in the armpit and dislocate the shoulder joint. Finish the cut to sever the wing. Repeat this for the other wing.

Step 3: Removing the leg requires the turkey be on its back with its legs spread wide. Make a cut through the skin on the inner thigh so the leg can be pushed farther from the body. Starting near the tail, locate the hip bone and cut close to the hip until you reach the thigh bone. Dislocate the hip joint. This is a two hand job so lay the knife down. When the joint “pops” as in the picture, follow the bone along the back with your knife to sever the thigh from the body. Repeat this effort with the other leg.

Step 4: Separate the thigh from the drumstick.

Look closely at the fat lines on the leg. The yellow fat follows the thigh bone down to the joint and there is a line of fat just to the right of my cut. This is always true. It defines the location of the joint and the cut. If you hit bone with your knife, you have missed the joint. You should have about as much meat as fat showing on the thigh side of the knife when you make the cut.

Step 5: The breast portions come off next. You can see in the picture and feel with your fingers to location of the breast bone.

Locate this bone and cut straight down alongside the bone pulling the meat away from the cut as you go. This bone is wide and deep, curving to the sides. Continue to follow it, locate the ribs as you progress and cut as closely to the bones as you can. You will run out of meat close to the back and the boneless breast portion will come away in your hand.

Repeat this effort with the other side.

Step 6: All that you have left now it the carcass.

In this picture I cut the thin meat between the back portion and the ribs and broke the back by flexing it strongly and then cutting the meat that attaches it to the rib cage.

These pieces I seasoned and roasted for nibbling, then boiled them for stock.

This is the collection of pieces removed from the bones. I have separated the wings, but otherwise everything is as it was removed from the body.

I wrapped the pieces in coated freezer paper, labeled and dated them.


Get the handy print page here:
How to: Cut Up Fresh Poultry.

Do you have a recipe post or kitchen-related story to share on the Farm Bell blog?
Read information here for Farm Bell blog submissions.


Want to subscribe to the Farm Bell blog? Go here.