How To Debone Chicken Thighs On The First Try

You're low on funds and you need a hearty meal. What to do, what to do? Chicken thighs are a flavorful and economical source of meat that can fill your belly for days. And bone-in thighs are even cheaper than the boneless/skinless variety.

At most grocery stores, you can stock up on with value pack — usually about 10 pieces for less than $2 a pound. That's probably enough to provide the entrée for at least a couple meals for less than $10. But inconvenience is one of the drawbacks of value shopping. Who has the steady hands and patience to remove those pesky bones from all their pieces of chicken? There's a quick and easy shortcut to shed the scraps while salvaging as much good meat as possible.

First of all, use latex gloves because this method can get a bit sticky. Open the chicken thighs butterfly style and feel around for the bone in the center. Slide your thumb just beneath the bone, then press your finger through somewhere in the center of the cut. Poke the (ideally, boning or paring) knife through the hole you've made and slice it to one end of the piece, with the back end pressed firmly against the bone; that should free one half of it pretty quickly. 

Now all you have to do is cut away the meat on the other end as you snatch the bone out. Voila! Femur completely detached in 60 seconds or less.

Despite their cheaper price and the need for some to deboning, chicken thighs with the bone in aren't half-bad at all. In fact, some poultry lovers prefer them because they tend to have a richer, deeper, meatier flavor than their boneless, skinless counterparts. You can also save the bones and roast them later to make a flavorful chicken stock.

However, it takes longer to cook chicken pieces with the bone in. And for some recipes they can just be too much of an onerous headache. That said, here's a more traditional approach to cutting away the bones should you feel the need. Lay your chicken with the skin facing down on a cutting board, use your knife to score the cutlet lengthwise along the bone on both sides as you whittle it away from the meat.

Once you've got enough of the bone exposed, hold it up and use your knife to make a perpendicular incisions beneath to separate the bone's middle shaft from the meat. Once you've wrestled one side free, pull the bone up and make the requisite cuts to detangle the other end.

Perhaps a cheat code to get the best of both worlds is slow cook your thighs with the bone in to retain the flavor of that marrow seeping into the meat. When there's about 15 minutes left, remove the bones and put the chicken back in the pot. It should be much easier to twist the femur out of cooked meat, but take care not to burn your fingertips at those temps.