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Learn How to Butterfly Chicken Breasts, a simple technique for splitting chicken so it cooks quickly or holds a filling. Or, cut chicken breasts all the way through to make cutlets.
Whether you want to stuff your chicken or just want to make cutlets for pan-frying, learning how to butterfly chicken is an easy, basic technique to master.
Many other meats or seafood can be butterflied the same way. Restaurants might butterfly a steak for a medium-well order or might butterfly shrimp to enhance its appearance and increase the cooking surface for searing.
Or, butterfly your chicken breasts all the way through to make a chicken breast recipe like cutlets. Bread them with flour, egg, and bread crumbs and fry over medium-high heat to make a host of recipes including Chicken Milanese, Chicken Piccata, or Chicken Schnitzel. All you need is a sharp knife, a flat surface, and in a perfect world, plastic wrap to cover the surface.
Table of Contents
Ingredient notes
- Chicken breast: Look for pink chicken (without even a hint of gray) and check the “best buy” date. Butterfly and pound chicken breasts to a uniform thickness so they cook quickly and evenly without burning. You can cut and pound chicken thighs the same way, too. Cut chicken breast all the way through to make chicken cutlets.
Step-by-step instructions
- Cover a cutting board completely with a piece of plastic wrap or parchment paper. Add chicken breasts meat. Working with one breast at a time, place the palm of your hand on top of the chicken breast and slice in half horizontally, starting at the thicker end of the breast, slicing all the way down the length of the breast, being careful not to cut all the way through the thin point or tip of the chicken. Repeat with the second breast.
- Arrange chicken breasts in a single layer on the plastic wrap-covered cutting board (notice the butterfly shape?). Cover with a second piece of plastic wrap or parchment paper. Pound chicken breasts to an even thickness, about 1/4-inch. Remove top layer of plastic wrap.
- To cook the chicken breasts, coat them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of herbs if desired. Fry in a skillet or on the grill to 165 degrees.
What is the best meat tenderizer?
To get your chicken super flat and tender for cooking, I love using the Oxo Steel Meat Tenderizer. It’s my top choice in my roundup of the best meat tenderizers and the one I personally use for cooking and in my test kitchen. You can get it for $16.80 at Amazon. Or, substitute a rolling pin for the meat mallet.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: 6 ounces of cooked chicken is a hearty, practical serving. To achieve that, plan for 2 pounds (32 ounces) of raw meat and assume it will cook down to about 1 ½ pounds (24 ounces) cooked chicken (there will be about 25% loss through cooking). That’s enough for 4 servings of chicken, 6 ounces each.
- Storage: According to the USDA, store raw chicken for 1-2 days in the refrigerator. Leftover cooked breast meat can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Freezer: Remove chicken from the grocery store package and re-wrap in foil, freezer paper, or plastic wrap, then place in freezer-safe bags. Label, date, and freeze for up to 9 months (technically they will last indefinitely, but the quality will suffer). Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
- Knives: A chef’s knife is great, and a boning knife works really well too. A small paring knife, even if it’s sharp, will make the job more difficult. But anything will work in a pinch.
- Roulade: Roll up your favorite fillings in pounded chicken breast such as asparagus spears, goat cheese, or other veggies like green beans (or a combination). Choose your favorite stuffing flavor, cover with parchment in a baking dish, and bake in the oven until the chicken has an internal temperature of 165 degrees on a meat thermometer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Butterflying chicken breast ensures quicker, even cooking, especially in large chicken breasts. Pounding out butterflied chicken can help with this even further.
This is when you butterfly a whole chicken entirely in half so it can lay flat. To spatchcock a chicken, remove the backbone from the back of the chicken (slice along the ribs and spine), then flip it over and press it flat through the breast bone.
More delicious recipes to try
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Lemon Pepper Chicken
Salad Recipes
Thai Chicken Salad
Chicken and Turkey Recipes
Garlic Butter Roast Chicken
Chicken and Turkey Recipes
Monterey Chicken
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How to Butterfly Chicken Breasts
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 4 large, see note 1)
Instructions
- Cover a cutting board completely with a piece of plastic wrap or parchment paper. Add chicken breasts. Working with one breast at a time, place your palm on top of the breast and slice in half horizontally taking care to not slice all the way through. Repeat with the second breast.
- Arrange chicken breasts in a single layer on the plastic wrap-covered cutting board. Cover with a second piece of plastic wrap or parchment paper. Pound chicken breasts to an even thickness, about 1/4-inch. Remove top layer of plastic wrap.
Notes
- Chicken breast: Look for pink chicken (without even a hint of gray) and check the “best buy” date. Butterfly and pound chicken breasts to a uniform thickness so they cook quickly and evenly without burning. You can cut and pound chicken thighs the same way, too. Cut chicken breast all the way through to make chicken cutlets.
- Yield: 6 ounces of cooked chicken is a hearty, practical serving. To achieve that, plan for 2 pounds (32 ounces) of raw meat and assume it will cook down to about 1 ½ pounds (24 ounces) cooked chicken (there will be about 25% loss through cooking). That’s enough for 4 servings of chicken, 6 ounces each.
- Storage: According to the USDA, store raw chicken for 1-2 days in the refrigerator. Leftover cooked breast meat can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Nutrition
Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.