How to Carve and Debone a Chicken

This is a pictorial tutorial for carving (cutting) and deboning a whole chicken. In this tutorial, I’m working with a whole poached chicken for Hainanese Chicken Rice. This method of carving the chicken will work for both cooked and raw chicken. Learning how to carve a chicken is a handy skill! Sometimes, depending on the availability at the supermarket, I may buy a whole raw chicken and cut them to the required parts to freeze in bags for cooking various dishes (e.g. chicken breast in one bag; chicken thighs in one bag, chicken wings in one bag).

See Also:

Hainanese Chicken Rice (海南鸡饭)

• Hainanese Chicken Rice Recipe
• Easy Roast Chicken Recipe
• Roast Chicken with Glutinous Rice (Lo Mai Kai) Stuffing Recipe

Although my knife skills are mediocre, I do think the end result is decent enough.  Besides a sharp knife (I always sharpen them before cutting meat), I also use a good and sturdy pair of kitchen scissors to cut certain parts of the chicken.

Click on photo to view full size	Description
	This is the whole chicken I just cooked for Hainanese chicken rice. Place it on the chopping board.
	Detach one of the chicken thigh as shown. If you locate the joint correctly, you should be able to cut through very easily.
	The detached chicken thigh.
	Repeat with the other thigh. You can see the cut is very clean and straight if the joints are located correctly.
	Turn the thigh to the under side. Cut it very precisely down the line separating the drum stick and the thigh.
	If you locate the line correctly, this should be a very easy and straight cut.
	What the cut thigh looks like (front view).
	Remove the bone by hand from the thigh and slice the meat to bite-sized pieces (as shown). As for the drumstick, discard the main bone and slice the meat accordingly.
	For the chicken wing, I loosen the joint by hand and use a pair of scissors to cut it off (or just pull it off gently).
	Repeat for the other chicken wing.
	You can cut the chicken wings into 3 portions (drumlette, mid-joint and wing tip) if desired.
	This is the breast portion. For bone-on, slice it in half in the middle as shown. I usually use a knife to slice through the meat and a pair of scissors to cut through the bones.For boneless, make the same middle cut down the flesh without cutting the bone. Just gently detach the two breast halves from the bone with your fingers, making sure the meat remains intact (do not break apart).
	Slice the chicken breast meat to bite-sized servings.
	Tip: You can freeze the chicken carcass and bones for making chicken stock.
	Serve your cut chicken according to your recipe.