How to Dress a Chicken for Cooking - A Step-by-Step Guide

I helped my grandfather pluck whole chickens when I was 12 years old. We would dip them in boiling hot water in a washtub first. That was the way he sold whole chickens to stores with his family business.

One day I asked Grandpa, “Isn’t there an easier way to dress out a chicken?” He showed me a method with no need to pluck feathers and no smelly stench from a wet chicken. It’s just a fast, easy way to put meat on the table.

Dressing a chicken, which is also called butchering or preparing a chicken, is the process of getting it ready to cook by taking off the feathers, organs, and other parts that can’t be eaten. Dressing a chicken may seem hard, but it’s a useful skill that gives you more control over the quality of the food you use. Dressing a chicken can be easy to learn if you have the right tools, know-how, and safety measures in place.

In this comprehensive guide we’ll walk through the step-by-step process of dressing a chicken as well as answer some frequently asked questions. Let’s get started!

What You’ll Need

Before you get started, make sure you have the following equipment:

A sharp knife or poultry shears for cutting
A large cutting board
A clean workspace like a countertop or table
A bowl or tray for collecting the organs
Plastic gloves for food safety
Paper towels for cleaning up
A garbage bag or bin for waste
Ingredients like herbs or lemons to dress the cavity

Step 1: Prepare the Chicken

Take the chicken out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes before you dress it. This makes the chicken easier to handle.

Clean the chicken with cool water and dry it with paper towels. Remove any giblets or parts from inside the cavity. If the liver has green spots, which mean it’s going bad, throw it away.

Step 2: Remove Excess Fat and Feathers

You can pluck out any big feathers, quills, or hairs with your hands or poultry shears. Watch out for the wings, neck, opening in the body, and areas around the legs. Remove any excess fat deposits around the chicken.

Step 3: Cut Off Feet

Bend one leg away from the body to pop and dislocate the joint. Place your knife between the joint and cut through the tendons and flesh to remove the feet. Repeat on the other leg. The feet can be saved for making chicken stock if desired.

Step 4: Make a Small Incision

Turn the chicken breast-side up and use a sharp knife to make a shallow 2-3 inch cut along the belly of the chicken, between the legs and just below the breastbone. Be careful not to cut too deeply.

Step 5: Remove the Organ Meats

Reach into the incision with your fingers to scoop out the organs and membranes. For whole birds, you’ll need to remove:

Heart
Lungs
Gizzard
Liver
Gallbladder

Place the organ meats into your prepared bowl or tray. Inspect them and set aside any you wish to consume like the heart and liver.

Step 6: Rinse Under Cool Water

Rinse the body cavity well under cold running water. Double check for any remaining membranes or organs. Pat the chicken dry with paper towels when done washing.

Step 7: Prepare the Cavity (Optional)

You can add flavor to the chicken by placing aromatic ingredients inside the cavity before cooking. Try herbs like thyme, lemon wedges, garlic or shallots. Trussing the legs with twine will give the chicken a plump, uniform shape.

Step 8: Chill and Cook

Place the dressed chicken in the refrigerator until fully chilled, for at least 4 hours. Cook within 2 days, or freeze for later use for up to 9 months.

And that’s it! With these simple steps you’ll have a cleanly dressed chicken ready for any recipe. Now onto some common questions:

FAQ About Dressing Chickens

What’s the best way to remove the feathers?

You have two options to loosen the feathers for easy plucking:

Dry plucking: Pluck the feathers by hand without scalding. Takes more time but preserves the skin.
Wet plucking: Dip in 160°F water for 30-90 seconds to loosen feathers. Faster but can damage skin.

Do I need to remove the head and feet?

Removing the head and feet is optional. Leaving them on preserves flavor. Be sure to thoroughly wash legs, wings and neck.

Can I save the chicken fat and organs?

Yes! Reserve the fat from the cavity to render for cooking. The heart, gizzard and liver can all be cooked and eaten.

What if my chicken has bruises or tears?

Discard any bruised flesh and rinse thoroughly if the chicken has any tears or holes. Use within 1-2 days.

How long does a dressed chicken last in the fridge?

A properly dressed chicken will last 2 days in the fridge and 9-12 months frozen. Monitor for spoilage and rancid odors.

What’s the safest method for dressing poultry?

Always dress poultry on a clean surface away from produce and ready-to-eat foods. Avoid cross-contamination by washing hands, knives, and surfaces after.

Can I freeze a dressed raw chicken?

Yes, dress chicken as normal and then wrap tightly to freeze. It’ll keep for 9-12 months frozen. Defrost fully before cooking.

Dressing your own chicken may seem like a messy process, but with the proper tools and some practice it quickly becomes an easy kitchen skill. By dressing your chicken at home, you’ll have total control over the freshness and quality of the meat.

how do you dress a chicken

Things you will need

A machete, knife, axe, or meat cleaver that is very sharp for cutting off the head Rope. Cut three or four 12- to 18-inch pieces of ¼-inch rope. One is to tie the chicken’s legs together tightly before cutting off the head. If you don’t, the chicken will run around the yard without a head. You can also tie the chicken’s legs to a hook on a tree or cart.

Figure 2. Front view showing where the cuts are made and how the skin is peeled away

A bowl. Any big bowl or pan will do; I use one made of stainless steel. Once you’ve cut the chicken off of the carcass, put it in it.
A large bowl of water. Again I use a stainless steel one. It helps me keep my hands and knife clean while I skin the chickens.
Two sawhorses form the base of my table, and I put a 24×48-inch piece of ¾-inch plywood on top of them. You could use a small folding table if you have one.
A fresh piece of plastic or butcher paper big enough to cover your work surface Tape it on or tuck it under the table top.
I use my trusty cart, setting it up on end. I can hang the chickens from the handle bar and skin them at the same time. So the cart doesn’t fall on me when I pull the skin down, I put a wooden block in it.
You can clean your knives and the chicken of any dirt or feathers with a garden hose before bringing them inside for the final cleaning and freezing process.
A big black trash bag with two twist ties to keep it on the cart Two-thirds of the way down the garbage bag, cut off any pieces you cut off while skinning, like the feathers and the body (Figure 1).

Now you are ready to butcher and skin the chicken.

Figure 3. A view showing how to cut away the mini-wing drumstick

Tie the chicken’s legs together and cut off its head. Then hang the chicken by its legs (see Figure 2) so that the breast side is facing you. Cut around the yellow part of the leg joint. The cut should be just deep enough to separate the skin, not deep enough to cut the leg tendon.

Cut the leg’s skin just deep enough so that it comes off around the meat. Then, pull the skin down. Pull the skin of the chicken down on each side, cutting off the other skin as you go to get to the leg meat that you will later cut off.

Figure 4. The skinned carcass, ready for you to take the meat

Continue to cut and pull the skin all the way down and backwards around the upper thigh. Continue to cut and pull the skin down around the breast and cut the wing loose at the first joint of the wing (Figure 3). Some people may want to continue to clean and cut around the feathers of the wing for the small tip of the wing bones, but for me there is so little meat it is not worth it.

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3

Now we are ready to strip the skinned carcass (Figure 4).

First, cut the wings, or mini-drumsticks, off at the joint near the breast. By forcing them backwards and cutting as close to the breast and joint as possible, you will expose the wing joint and you can cut through and around it.

Next, cut the breast out. Lay your knife at an angle, starting the cut as close to the breastbone as possible.

Figure 5. Side view showing where to cut the meat

Take your knife and stay close to the rib cage while cutting downward and backward in an arcing direction as shown in Figure 5. Repeat the process on the other breast.

You are ready to claim the legs and thighs all in one piece. If you want to separate them later you can do so. Go up to the ankle joint at about ¾ to 1 inch above the “leggin’s” (that’s what I call the scaly yellow part above the feet on the chicken), and cut through and around the joint so that each leggin’ and foot falls free. While holding the drumstick and thigh in the left hand, take your right hand and hold the carcass while at the same time pushing the thigh and drumstick backwards. This is like opening a set of French doors. You will both see and hear the thigh joint pop loose from the hip joint. Cut as close to the round point as possible (Figure 5).

To separate the thigh from the carcass, make the next and final cut at the back upper part of the thigh, just about 1½ to 2 inches next to the anus. You now have a complete thigh and drumstick.

Some folks might say that you are not getting all the meat, that you are leaving the two small bony pieces on the wing tip, the two little scraps of meat on the backbone, the liver, and the neck. I say if you like those parts, go for it.

Figure 6. The results of a freshly skinned and butchered chicken.