Question: What is the yield of chicken meat on a whole chicken? Short answer: Whole chickens are about half bone, half meat if you try very hard to remove all of the meat. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts only, cut from a whole chicken, usually weigh about a pound to 24 ounces (1.5 lbs) total for both breasts, including the chicken tenders.
I’ve weighed out dozens of real chickens (organic or pastured) because I’m a frugal nerd and I’ve been trying to figure out why people think whole chickens are a better value than boneless, skinless chicken breasts. They’re generally not, because half the weight of a whole chicken is not meat, and only about half the meat you do get is white meat.
For example, a 4-lb whole chicken that costs $1.46/lb (Walmart price):
- $5.84 total price.
- 2 lbs bone/skin/unusable parts.
- 1 lb breast meat.
- 1 lb dark meat.
If boneless, skinless chicken breast costs $1.99/lb (a typical sale price), and bone-in, skin-on legs and thighs cost $0.99/lb (a typical sale price), and wings cost $3.49/lb for some weird reason,
- I could buy 3 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breast for the same price as a whole chicken and get an extra pound of chicken meat compared to the whole chicken. For my family’s preferences, boneless, skinless chicken breast is usually all we want, anyway.
OR
- I could buy 1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breast for $1.99, and 2 lbs of bone-in, skin-on legs and/or thighs for $1.98 at $0.99/lb (2 lbs, since I’ll only get about 1 lb of meat from them after bones/skin are removed), and spend a total of $3.97, which leaves me enough left over to buy half a pound of those oddly expensive $3.49/lb chicken wings if I really wanted them—or I could just buy nearly a pound more of the boneless, skinless chicken breast, to end up with 4 lbs of chicken meat vs. the 2 lbs of chicken meat I’d get off a 4 lb whole chicken.
Organic or pastured chickens usually weigh 4-5 pounds, with half the weight being meat and half being bones, skin, and unusable parts. Frankenchickens (Tyson, Purdue, Heritage Farm, Foster Farms, etc.) might be different but it looks like the whole Frankenchickens are in the 4-5 pound range as well. For what it’s worth, we feed our German Shepherd mutt raw food and he got very sick eating Heritage Farm chicken. He’s also not a fan of Foster Farms. If your dog won’t eat it, don’t eat it.
I generally only buy whole chickens if I:
A: Buy a pastured chicken because I want to use a very clean chicken to make healthy chicken bone broth/chicken gelatin.
B: Want bone-in, skin-on chicken parts, because it’s very hard to find a cut up chicken like most supermarkets used to sell ( a whole chicken cut up into 8 pieces of chicken, in one package), even among the Frankenchicken brands. This used to be called a “Picnic” package, presumably because people would fry or grill the pre-cut chicken parts to serve at a picnic.
I just purchased a Sam’s Club membership for $20 (you can usually find a Sam’s Club membership deal for $30, but the “list price” is $50) because I browsed prices online and noticed that Sam’s Club sells Rosie brand organic, air-chilled chicken in Phoenix. It looks like Purdue owns Rosie, so it may or may not be real organic chicken, but I’ve been very disappointed in the “Just Bare” brand of organic chicken quality over the last few months. “Just Bare” organic chicken, which I buy at Winco for $7.99/lb, has weighed several ounces less than the stated weight nearly every package (I’ve bought and weighed at least 50 lbs of “Just Bare” organic, boneless, skinless chicken breast), and in the last few months, the “Just Bare” organic chicken has had a texture that closely resembles Frankenchicken: Stringy, slightly greenish or whitish from the bleach baths, and not like a healthy, firm, peachy-pink chicken breast should look or feel. I emailed “Just Bare” about my experience, weight issues, and texture disappointments, and “Just Bare” did not reply. I used to buy Rosie chicken at Sprouts, but I haven’t shopped at Sprouts since 2020, because Sprouts Farmer’s Market is DIRTY, and they called the cops on old ladies wheeling oxygen tanks alongside their wheelchairs in 2020 because the disabled elderly women couldn’t wear masks. Bad Sprouts, and bad Glendale, AZ Police Department for responding and physically barring elderly disabled people from shopping at Sprouts.
I don’t actually like chicken unless it’s deep fried, but my family does like chicken, and most people do. So Sam’s Club price of $2.57/lb for a whole, organic, air chilled chicken is a better grocery deal than paying the same price for a whole “Just Bare” chicken at Winco, or paying $3.99/lb for a Fry’s (Kroger) Simple Truth brand organic whole chicken. And at the 1:1 ratio of meat to bones/unusable parts in a whole chicken, the Sam’s Club organic whole chicken works out to paying $5.14/lb for organic chicken, plus, you can use the carcass and skin to make chicken bone broth and schmaltz.
I usually buy about 16 lbs of organic, boneless, skinless chicken breast each month for my family.
- $127.84: Winco price, at $7.99/lb for “Just Bare” organic, boneless, skinless chicken breast x 16 lbs.
- $93.76: Sam’s Club price, at $5.86/lb for Rosie organic, boneless, skinless chicken breast x 16 lbs.
- $82.24: Sam’s Club price, at $5.14/lb for Rosie organic, whole chicken, at $2.57/lb, yield makes it $5.14/lb x 16 lbs.
The first month I buy Sam’s Club Rosie organic chicken breast instead of Winco “Just Bare” organic chicken breast, I pay for my $20 annual Sam’s Club membership fee plus keep another $14 and change in my pocket. If I buy 16 lbs per month, times 10 months this year (I’m sure I won’t buy chicken every single month), less my $20 buy-in for the Sam’s Club membership, I’ll save a total of $320 on boneless, skinless chicken breast buying it at Sam’s Club vs. Winco. That one change reduces my grocery bill by 3%.
For this chicken meat yield test, I cut two whole chickens into 8 parts (2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 legs, 2 wings). I skinned and deboned the chicken breasts, but I left the skin on and the bones in the dark meat.
This is the chicken meat yield off two whole chickens:
- Rosie organic chicken, available at Sam’s Club. The whole chickens cost $2.57/lb.
- Total: $26.21 for one 4.7-lb chicken, one 5.5-lb chicken= 10.2 pounds of whole chicken.
- I left the skin on and the bone in for the legs, wings, and thighs (for barbecue chicken, fried chicken, etc.) so my “meat” yield is technically incorrect compared to the normal 1:1 ratio of meat to bones/unusable parts of a whole chicken. I bought the whole chicken because Sam’s doesn’t sell bone in-, skin-on organic chicken thighs or legs, which I needed for the barbecue chicken recipe (my grandma’s easy barbecue chicken recipe is here). If you’re taking all the bones out (like for shredded chicken), you’ll always get about half meat/half bone from a whole chicken. The 1:1 ratio of meat to bones/unusable parts makes the Rosie’s whole chicken from Sam’s Club $5.14 per pound. The boneless, skinless chicken breast at Sam’s Club is $5.86/lb. So, for 12% more money, you can buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts, without any extra work. It’s a royal pain to cut up a whole chicken. Also, the whole chicken includes dark meat, which is worth less than white meat.
- For my purposes (dark meat bone-in, breasts boneless), the total chicken meat yield for two chickens was 7 pounds, 11 ounces (7.7 lbs). The packaged weight was 10 pounds, 3 ounces (10.2 lbs). Yield: 76% meat (but again, I left the bones/skin on the legs, wings, and thighs).
- For this use of the Rosie brand organic, whole chicken from Sam’s Club, I paid $26.21 for 123 ounces of meat (7.7 lbs) = 21 cents per ounce of meat, including the skin and bones of the thighs, legs, and wings. That means the price I paid at checkout was $2.57 per pound, but the true price was $3.40 per pound. That’s a very good price for organic chicken. Keep reading for how I use up a whole chicken, below:
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How I use up a whole chicken:
- For shredded chicken:
- Roast the whole chicken uncovered in a 9×13 glass casserole dish at 400 degrees for 50 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 200 degrees and cook for 2 more hours. The deep dish Pyrex (check price on Amazon) also works well for lasagna.
- OR
- Shove the whole chicken into a 6-quart Instant Pot (I have the original version of the 6 quart Instant Pot Duo; here’s the current version on Amazon.), add one cup of water, and pressure cook using the High Pressure/Manual setting for two hours. (The silly tips one reads on the internet from bots/fake bloggers faking “shredded” chicken in a few minutes in an Instant Pot, just gives you stringy, hard chicken. It’s really not any faster to cook fall-off-the-bone, juicy shredded chicken in an Instant Pot than in the oven or on the stove top.)
- OR
- Cook the whole chicken on the stove top in a large pot with a half cup of water, covered, on medium heat (should barely simmer as it cooks), for two hours.
- Remove chicken but do not discard broth. Let chicken cool until you can easily handle it, then use 2 or 3 bowls as you pick the chicken apart:
- Put all breast meat into one bowl.
- Put all dark meat into one bowl. (If you don’t care if your white meat and dark meat are mixed, use one bowl for all the meat.)
- Put all skin, bones, and weird parts into one bowl.
- Put the skin, bones, and weird parts on a rimmed sheet pan lined with parchment paper, and roast it all at 450 degrees for 30 minutes, or until nicely browned.
- I have these Made in the USA Nordic Ware sheet pans from Amazon because they don’t pop or warp under high heat.
- Kirkland (Costco) parchment is the best, but I hate Costco (see Sprouts, above), and the Amazon price for Kirkland parchment paper is still much cheaper per square foot than buying smaller packages of inferior parchment from the grocery store (Reynold’s parchment is awful).
- Pick the remaining meat off the roasted bones. You should end up with about 8 ounces more meat per whole chicken. Be very careful not to add tiny bones to your chicken meat pile. I do this part with bare hands rather than wearing gloves, so I can feel any bones or gristle.
- Divide chicken meat as desired for different recipes. I usually divide the meat from a whole chicken into:
- Large chicken breast chunks for main dish salads, pastas, casseroles, sandwiches, and snacking.
- Small chicken breast shreds for chicken salad or Mexican dishes like tacos, burritos, and taquitos.
- Shredded dark meat chicken for chicken tacos and enchiladas. My family doesn’t like dark meat chicken, but when heavily spiced in Mexican dishes, nobody notices. Also, organic and pastured chickens don’t have that “chewing on aluminum foil” taste that Frankenchicken dark meat has.
- Put the roasted skin, bones, and weird parts back into your stove top pot or Instant Pot (along with the original broth from cooking) and cover with water. (You can add extra stuff if you want at this point, but it’s not necessary. And it’s a myth that a splash of apple cider vinegar removes more nutrients from the bones; you’d basically have to cook the bones in straight vinegar to do that.) My tests have determined that you will get much firmer chicken gelatin when cooking chicken bones at a nice boil on the stove top for 12 hours (replenish water as needed), than when pressure cooking for even 16 hours (maximum pressure cooking time of 4 hours, four times). But, if you need to leave the house or go to bed, the Instant Pot will work fine.
- Once the bones are soft enough to squish with your fingers, strain the broth and refrigerate. Don’t throw out the bones yet:
- Pull the skin pieces out, put the skin back onto the cookie sheet lined with parchment paper that you roasted the bones on, sprinkle with salt, and bake until crispy. This makes carnivore chicken chips.
- Pull tendons, veins, and weird bits out (anything that is not bone), and feed it to your dog.
- If you’re really hard core, you could puree the softened bones in a food processor and use the pureed bones for your dog, chicken feed or in your garden. I give the pureed bones to our dog, a bit at a time, stirred into pumpkin.
- I have the old version of this food processor. The new one is NOT as good, but it’s still better than the Kitchen Aid and Cuisinart food processors.
- With the strained, refrigerated broth: once the fat has set hard and cold on the top of the broth (this usually takes at least 12 hours in the fridge), scoop the fat off the top into a container. and refrigerate or freeze. This is “schmaltz”, which is rendered chicken fat. Use the schmaltz for cooking, baking, or add to dry chicken breast when you need to add some extra fat or flavor.
- Salt the broth to taste, and reduce the broth down to one cup (you can use the “Sautee” function on the Instant Pot, or cook down over medium heat on the stove top).
- Pour the broth into a small glass dish, let cool, and refrigerate. I have 3 sets of Pyrex Snapware (the glass, not the plastic). They freeze well and you can easily take the lid off right from the freezer.
- Once the reduced broth is cold, you can cut it into 16 pieces (16 tbsp. per cup). The texture will be like extremely firm Jello. Each piece will reconstitute to one cup of chicken broth when you add one cup of water. The firm, reduced chicken gelatin squares will stay separated in a ziploc bag or jar, in the freezer.
Total usable food from one whole chicken:
- All of the meat (meat yield will be half the weight of the raw, whole chicken).
- Schmaltz (schmaltz yield is about 1/3 cup per chicken).
- Snacks for the dog (the gross bits and tendons; everything except the bones).
- Chicken skin snacks for the humans.
- 16 cups of strong chicken bone broth/chicken gelatin.
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