When the chicken is raw or after it has been cooked, the skin can be removed.
The skin adds flavor to the meat and protects it from drying out while it cooks. However, it also serves as a storage area for a significant amount of fat, which is found just beneath the skin.
Of course, it’s healthier to remove the skin from the chicken before cooking it because the fat beneath it won’t melt onto the chicken during cooking.
Therefore, depending on the dish, it might be best for you to remove it. Here’s how to peel chicken, both when it’s raw and when it’s cooked.
Removing Skin from Individual Raw Chicken Pieces
1 Pull the skin away from one side of a breast. When you want to remove the skin from a chicken breast, place the breast on a clean cutting board so the skin side is facing up. Choose one side of the breast and take hold of the skin to carefully pull it away from the meat.[10]
- If the skin doesn’t come off in one piece, don’t be concerned. Just grab the last bit and pull until the breast is completely skin-free.
2 Grasp the skin at the joint side of a thigh. To skin a chicken thigh, its important to start at the joint where the skin is usually most strongly attached. Grab the skin right where it connects to the joint and pull it off in one piece. If you meet any resistance along the way, use a sharp knife to cut the skin free.[11]
- You can use a paper towel to grab the slippery skin and gain better traction if you feel like your fingers are slipping on it. It can also be helpful to dip your fingers in salt, but make sure to do so in a small dish and discard the rest after use to avoid contaminating your salt with bacteria from the raw chicken.
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- Use a small knife to carefully scrape any small pieces of skin that have become stuck along the bone.
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Removing the skin from a whole raw chicken
Place your chicken on your cutting board after washing it in cold water.
Start at the top of the chicken where the neck once was, and using a knife, carefully glide the blade along the skin from the top of the breast to the bottom.
You risk cutting into the breast fillet if you push too far.
We want to lightly score the skin so that you can pull it apart like you would when opening a jacket.
Don’t even try the wings because it’s nearly impossible to get all the skin off, and the drumsticks are one of the hardest parts to remove the skin from.
You will encounter some resistance as you begin to remove the chicken skin; if the surface is too slick, I advise using a paper towel to improve your grip.
Continue peeling the skin off until you reach the drumsticks, then continue pulling until you reach the thick part of the drumstick all the way down to the ankles.
One of the most challenging steps is to completely remove the skin. Continue pulling until you have finished, then flip the chicken over.
You should now be examining the chicken’s back or underside. The skin is firmly attached to the back. Pull until you can no longer pull, then help yourself remove the chicken by running a knife between the back of the chicken and under the skin.
Moving on to the wings, try to remove as much of the skin as you can while keeping in mind that you won’t be able to remove much skin. I advise removing as much skin as you can and then cutting it off.
There will still be some skin on the wings, but it will be on the tip, which you won’t eat. Although some people enjoy nibbling on the cooked tip.
In order to complete the skin removal, inspect the chicken and trim any remaining skin that you may have missed. Don’t forget to trim the fat as well; focus in particular on the thighs, back, and breasts. Some components can simply be scraped with a knife’s point to remove fat. In contrast, in some places you’ll have to cut it off.
Place your bone-in breast on the cutting board after giving it a cold water rinse.
If you have a single chicken breast. The skin can be removed simply by running a finger underneath it and yanking it off.
You will be given the white meat and some fat around the edges. You can clean the chicken by running your knife along the fat with it.
It is almost exactly the same for a double breast on the bone. Put your finger underneath the skin and just pull. If you encounter any resistance, it ought to come off without difficulty. After improving your grip with a paper towel, remove the last bit of breast fat by scraping it off.
The thighs have some of the easiest skin to remove. Simply washing the items in cold water and removing a small piece of skin suffices.
The skin on the thighs is attached by some fat, so removing the skin means spending a little more time removing the fat than you would when removing skin from the breast.
Avoid just trimming the fat off because you will waste a lot of meat. To reduce waste, I advise using a knife to scrape away the extra fat.
The drumsticks are simple, but they can be challenging near the end of the leg.
Using a paper towel to help with skin grip is the simplest method.
Starting with a cold water rinse and working your way to the end, peel the skin off the legs. You will notice some resistance as you pull the skin.
If you wind it around your pointer finger and pull firmly, you should be able to remove the skin in the majority of cases.
The skin may be slippery from washing the chicken. You could therefore try patting the skin dry first, but I find that using a paper towel is quicker.
It is simple to remove the skin from the merryland, or leg quarter, which consists of the thigh and drumstick.
Start with the thigh after rinsing the merryland with cold water, and pull back the skin until you encounter resistance. Pull the skin off the thigh using a paper towel until it starts to come off. Where there is a lot of fat, you might have to run a knife under the skin.
After that, move on to the drumstick and continue working your way down the chicken’s leg until you encounter significant resistance. Using a paper towel to aid your grip, completely remove the drumstick’s skin.
You may get it clean off. If not, simply clean it up with a knife and remove any extra skin. After you’ve taken off all the chicken skin, go back and trim any extra fat.
FAQ
What is the easiest way to remove skin from chicken?
The skin adds flavor to the meat and protects it from drying out while it cooks. However, it also serves as a storage area for a significant amount of fat, which is found just beneath the skin. Of course, it’s healthier to remove the skin from the chicken before cooking it because the fat beneath it won’t melt onto the chicken during cooking.
Should I remove the skin from chicken breast?
Place the whole chicken on a fresh cutting board before you begin to skin it. Using short cutting motions, work the skin free until you reach one of the wings by sliding a long, sharp kitchen knife under the skin at the chicken’s neck. Cut the wing free from the body at the joint while the knife is still buried beneath the skin.
How do you skin a chicken before cooking?
Of course, the skin’s fat is what can give the meat such a delicious flavor. Dietary recommendations advise removing the skin before broiling, baking, stewing, or fricasseeing for the fear that fat will melt and drip onto the meat during the cooking process, increasing the calorie content.
