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I love using chicken thighs with skin-on in recipes, but the grocery stores in my area only carry bone-in thighs or skinless. Not to worry, deboning chicken thighs is rather simple. All you need is a sharp knife and your good ol’ hands. You do need to get your hands up in there with some raw chicken, so make sure you’re comfortable with that before starting this process.
Why Debone Chicken Thighs?
There are several recipes that call for chicken thighs that are boneless, but with the skin on, like this recipe for Air Fryer Lemongrass Chicken. For this type of recipe, you want the chicken to be boneless for ease of cutting later, but you want the chicken fat to slowly render and have nice crispy skin. It also cooks much faster without the bone. Since the grocery stores don’t usually sell boneless chicken thighs with the skin on, you’ll need to do this yourself.
You might also need to debone chicken thighs if a recipe calls for boneless thighs and you only have bone-in thighs on hand. I find myself in this situation sometimes as I’ll buy the chicken thighs in bulk, especially if it’s on sale. I love a good deal! What’s also great is after you debone the chicken thighs yourself, you can save them up to make chicken stock.
Recipes Using Deboned Chicken Thighs:
How To Debone Chicken
Equipment
Ingredients
- Bone-in chicken thighs
Instructions
- Lay your chicken thigh skin side down on your cutting board. Locate the bone.
- Using the tip of your knife, cut through the meat until you hit the bone. Gently scrape your knife tip along the side of the bone. Do this on each side, scraping off the meat as close to the bone as possible. You can use your hands to gently pull the meat away.
- Continue scraping your knife along the ends until you reach the joints. Use your fingers to feel around the joints, and slowly cut around with the tip of the knife until the bone is removed. Clean up any excess skin if you like. And, voila! Your chicken thigh is ready to use.
