Tuesday, August 7, 2012

How to Prepare an Airline Chicken Breast

Not the BEST example in the world - but delicious, nonetheless

Sometimes you just want to impress your dinner guests.  Sometimes you're on a tight budget.  What cut of meat would you choose?  Obviously a chicken!  There's about a million+ ways to prepare a chicken and make it look presentable, but have you ever tried to airline your chicken breast?

What does it mean to airline a chicken, you ask?  It's basically a boneless chicken breast with the first wing bone still attached.  Why on earth would you ever want to do something like that?  Well, personally, I think it makes the chicken breast look a bit neater and more attractive.  It also make it look a little bigger, portion-wise.  And it shows you have a little skill with breaking down your chicken.

It's extremely easy, so there's no reason why you wouldn't want to do it!

Start with a whole chicken.  Remove the leg by pulling the leg and thigh away from the breast and cutting through the skin and flesh toward the thigh joint.


Cut through the thigh joint, releasing the thigh and leg from the carcass.  Repeat with other leg.

Turn the chicken over, back-side down.  Locate the wishbone and trim around it to remove it.


Cut along one side of the breast bone, carefully separating the meat from the bone.


Continue along the rib cage until the breast is removed from the bone.

When you reach the wing joint, cut through the joint, leaving the wing attached to the breast.  Finish cutting the breast from the carcass.

Make a cut on the back of the joint between the first and second wing bones.


Break the joint and pull the meat and skin back to expose a clean bone.  Trim the wing bone, if necessary.


You now have an airline chicken breast!  You can choose to leave the skin on or off - but we all know crispy skin is delicious, so I usually choose to leave it on!

Prepare your chicken any which way you like - I chose to make some crispy deep fried chicken breasts with orange sauce (recipe over at Rock Recipes).  It was DELICIOUS! 

Hope you guys have a great week!

11 comments:

  1. Cool you dealing with the whole chicken!
    The chicken breast looks scrumptious.

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  2. Thanks for sharing! This is an awesome tutorial!

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  4. I learnt how to portion a chicken from my Granny, I don't think we left the bone on the breast though so it's good to have a different way of doing it!

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  5. I need to try this with your instructions on the counter. I can see how great that might cook and look fancy on the plate.

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  6. Great tutorial, Peggy! You made it look so simple.
    The dish looks spectacular too!

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  7. I'm going to make this for my boyfriend!

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  8. Sounds delish, Peggy!!! And thank goodness it's not a reproduction of the dry, flavorless chicken you actually eat on airlines :)

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  9. Thanks for showing how to cut the chicken breast, I had never heard of airline chicken. The chicken breast with the orange sauce sounds wonderful. My husband is a big fan of orange chicken, I will have to make this for him.

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  10. This is also the chicken cut you need to make kiev, so worth learning how. Thanks for the clear diagrams

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