If you haven't cut up a chicken carcass before, then it can be a bit challenging. This sectioning method produces an eight piece, ten piece, or twelve piece result.   Start with a Wilson Pastured, Free Ranged Chicken

by Michael Chu
First, start with a clean surface and assemble your tools. All you really need is a strong sturdy knife and a large cutting board. I also like using kitchen or poultry shears. In the picture below, you'll see that I'm using a plastic cutting board, but wood would have worked just as well. In my case, my largest wood cutting board does not have a blood or juice groove, so I chose to use my large plastic board.


Remove the giblets from the chicken and set aside (often, I'll use these and any trimmings from the bird for making stock. Rinse the chicken and as much water as possible drip out before transferring to the cutting board. Orient the carcass so the breast is facing up.

Start by removing the legs. This is done by pulling a leg away from the body and scraping with the sharp edge of the knife through the connecting skin and tissue.


Once the bone is reached, use the tip of your knife to find the joint where the thigh meets the main body. Pressing down on the knife between the joint, cut through the cartilage and separate the leg from the body.


By cutting through the joint, you won't have any shattered pieces of bone in your chicken.


Use your fingers to feel where the thigh bone meets the drumstick and cut through the joint with your knife. Once you've separated the drumstick from the thigh, look to see where you started your cut. On the other leg, look at the same region. You'll notice a line of fat. Cutting straight down through this line will yield clean separation of drumstick and thigh.


Next, separate the wing from the body.


For a twelve piece chicken, cut the wing through the first joint. This cut is desirable when frying the chicken wings because it exposes more of the skin of the wing providing more area for breading and a more even fry. The wing portion with the tip is called a wingette, while the portion attached to the body is called the drummette.


Repeat the leg and wing steps for the other side.

Rotate the carcass so it is breast-side down. Using kitchen shears, cut through the ribs down both sides of the back bone. If you don't have kitchen shears, you can stand the bird up and cut down with your knife to remove the backbone. You can save the backbone for making stock.


Splitting the breast can be done from the breast side, as shown below.


Another method is to split the breast by cutting from the inside, through the keel bone.


Once the breasts have been separated, you can cut them in half for a ten or twelve piece chicken. This is often recommended to produce portions of similar size - especially since many chickens are bred to have large breasts.


This method of cutting up a chicken can produce the "classic" eight piece, even-portioned ten piece, or perfect-fry twelve piece cuts.

Eight pieces

• 2 drumsticks
• 2 thighs
• 2 wings
• 2 breast halves

Ten pieces

• 2 drumsticks
• 2 thighs
• 2 wings
• 4 breast quarters

Twelve pieces

• 2 drumsticks
• 2 thighs
• 2 wingettes
• 2 drummettes
• 4 breast quarters