How to Carve a Roast Chicken (Whole and Spatchcocked)

A perfect roast chicken just out of the oven is a sight to behold—a deep brown skin that's thin and crisp, fragrant juices pooling below. It'd be a shame to mess that chicken up with a sloppy carving technique. And why should you? Properly carving a chicken into pieces that can be served to individuals is a quick and easy task. Here are the key steps, shown for both a whole roast chicken as well as a spatchcocked one.

How to Carve a Whole Roast Chicken

Step 1: Separate Legs from Body

Following the natural seam between the legs and the breast, cut down through the skin. The leg should naturally separate. Next, locate the joint where the thigh bone connects to the body and carefully slip the knife through it; you'll know you have the right spot when the knife goes through easily—any resistance is a sign you're hitting bone and should reposition the knife.

Once the joint is separated, cut through the remaining skin to fully separate the the legs from the body.

Step 2: Separate the Drumsticks From the Thighs

Flip the legs over so they are skin side down. The chicken will likely have spilled juices onto your work surface, so try to find a dry spot where the crisp skin won't get soaked and softened too much while it's upside down.

Look for the natural seam, often demarcated by a subtle line of fat, between the meat of the muscle and thigh. Slice down through this seam. If the knife is positioned well, it will pass through easily; if not, reposition the blade to find the space in the joint where the knife will pass through.

Flip the drumsticks and thighs skin side up and set aside.

Step 3: Remove the Breasts from the Bone Cage

Using long, clean strokes, slice down through the breast just to one side or the other of the keel bone that sticks up in the dead center of the breast. Continue long, clean knife strokes until you hit the bone cage below, then angle the knife to continue cutting the breast meat from the bone. Try your best to cut as close to the bone as possible so you leave as little meat as possible behind; you can use your free hand to gently lift the breast away from the bone as you work, which can help you see what you're doing better.

Once the breast is almost fully removed, you have to separate the wing joint: Locate the wing joint by pulling the breast meat farther away from the bone, then slip the tip of your knife down through the joint. As with all joints, the goal is to pass the knife through the space inside the joint, where it will meet little resistance; if you feel like you're hitting something hard, reposition the knife until it goes through more easily. You can now fully remove the breast meat and the attached wing in one piece from the carcass.

Repeat on the other side of the chicken to remove the second breast piece and wing.

Step 4: Slice Breast Into Smaller Portions

There are different ways to do this. You can simple cut the breast crosswise in two pieces so that you end up with roughly equal portions, one the thicker end of the breast with the wing attached and the other the piece of breast that tapers to a point.

Alternatively, you can slice the breast crosswise into medallions, which allows for a more fanned-out presentation.

If desired, you can also fully remove the wings from the breast meat and serve them separately.

Step 5: Pick the Carcass, Then Use it for Stock

Do not be one of those people who lets the carcass go to waste. The cook should stand in the kitchen and tear all the juicy bits from the carcass as a special cook's snack—no matter how well you carve the bird, there's always plenty more to eat from the bones.

Then save whatever is left to make stock. I personally like to use the remains of a roast bird to make brown chicken stock, which involves putting the bones back in the oven along with aromatic vegetables like onion, carrot, celery, and garlic (everything tossed lightly in oil), and roasting them all until well browned but not burned. A stock made this way will be more delicious than one made from the plain carcass, which otherwise yields neither a delicious white chicken stock (made from raw chicken) nor a proper brown chicken stock (because the carved bones don't have enough browning on them).

How to Carve a Spatchcocked Chicken

The method of carving a spatchcocked chicken is basically the same as a whole roast bird, but the angles and geometry are a little different.

The legs will come off more easily, since spatchcocking removes the backbone and disconnects the thighs at their joints. All you have to do is cut through the skin along the breast and the legs will separate.

The breast, on the other hand, is slightly more difficult: Because the bird has been pressed flat, you have to cut down alongside the keel bone and then make a much sharper pivot with the blade to the glide along the flattened bone cage. It's not hard, it's just slightly more awkward.