Have you ever gone to the grocery store, recipe in hand, only to find they’re completely out of ground chicken? Or maybe you’ve been shocked by the price tag on those little packages of pre-ground chicken? I’ve been there too and it’s frustrating! The good news is that making your own ground chicken at home is incredibly simple cost-effective, and gives you complete control over what goes into your meat.
I started grinding my own chicken about two years ago, and honestly, I wish I’d started sooner. Not only do I save money but I can control the fat content freshness, and avoid any additives that might be in store-bought versions.
Why Make Your Own Ground Chicken?
Before diving into the how-to, let’s talk about why you might want to grind your own chicken:
- Cost savings: Boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs are often cheaper than pre-ground chicken
- Freshness: You know exactly how fresh your meat is
- Customizable fat content: Create your perfect lean-to-fat ratio by mixing breast and thigh meat
- Availability: Never be stuck without ground chicken for your recipes again
- Avoid additives: Some store-bought ground meats contain preservatives or other additives
What You’ll Need
The great thing about making ground chicken is that you don’t need fancy equipment Here are your options
Basic Equipment Options:
- Food processor (easiest method for most home cooks)
- Sharp knife (if you don’t have a food processor)
- Meat grinder (if you make ground meat frequently)
- Metal baking sheet
- Wax paper or non-stick aluminum foil
Choosing Your Chicken
The type of chicken you use matters for texture, flavor, and fat content. Here are your options:
Chicken Breast vs. Chicken Thighs
Chicken breasts are very lean (about 99% lean), while thighs have more fat (making them about 93% lean). I personally recommend using a mix of both for the best texture and flavor.
Here are some blend options and their approximate lean-to-fat ratios:
- All chicken breast: 99% lean (can be a bit dry in recipes)
- 3 lbs breast + 2 lbs thighs: 97% lean (good balance)
- 2 lbs breast + 3 lbs thighs: 95% lean (great flavor, still lean)
- All chicken thighs: 93% lean (most flavorful option)
Pro tip: I usually go with the 2:3 breast-to-thigh ratio for most recipes. It gives great flavor while still being lean enough to be health-conscious.
Skin On or Off?
I recommend using skinless chicken. While chicken skin has great flavor, it contains connective tissue that might not cook well in ground chicken recipes. It can also jam up your grinder or food processor.
3 Methods to Make Ground Chicken
Let me walk you through the three main ways to make ground chicken at home:
Method 1: Using a Food Processor (Quickest Method)
This is my go-to method when I’m in a hurry:
- Prep the chicken: Pat the chicken dry with paper towels.
- Partially freeze: Place chicken in the freezer for 20-25 minutes until firm but not completely frozen. This makes it easier to process.
- Cut into chunks: Slice the chicken into 1-1.5 inch pieces.
- Process in batches: Add chicken to the food processor, filling it only halfway.
- Pulse carefully: Pulse 4-6 times until you reach your desired consistency. Don’t over-process, or you’ll end up with a paste!
- Check consistency: The chicken should be evenly ground but still have some texture.
Caution: This method works best for recipes where you’ll be further cooking and breaking apart the chicken. It’s not ideal for burgers or meatballs.
Method 2: Using a Knife (No Special Equipment)
If you don’t have a food processor, this method works great:
- Freeze partially: Freeze chicken for 60-90 minutes until firm but not solid.
- Make horizontal cuts: Working with one piece at a time, make 1/4″ horizontal slices at a 45° angle, cutting about 75% through the chicken.
- Flip and repeat: Flip the chicken and make similar slices in the opposite direction.
- Make vertical cuts: Cut vertical slices to create a checkered pattern.
- Chop finely: Gather the chicken into a pile and chop in several directions until you reach your desired grind consistency.
This method takes a bit longer but gives you more control over the texture. With some practice and good music playing, you can grind several pounds in about 15 minutes.
Method 3: Using a Meat Grinder (Best for Frequent Use)
If you grind meat often, a meat grinder is a worthwhile investment:
- Prep the chicken: Pat dry and cut into strips that will fit your grinder’s tube.
- Select grinding plate: Use medium for cooking and breaking apart, coarse for burgers and meatballs.
- Grind the meat: Feed the chicken through the grinder, alternating between breast and thigh pieces for an even blend.
- Check consistency: The chicken should come out evenly ground.
If you have a KitchenAid stand mixer, their meat grinder attachment (around $100) is a great option that works really well.
Bonus Method: Ask Your Butcher
If DIY isn’t your thing, you can always ask the butcher at your grocery store to grind chicken for you. Just be aware that there’s some meat loss in the grinding process, so order a bit more than you need (about half a pound extra).
Storage Tips
After grinding your chicken, you’ll want to store it properly:
- Refrigeration: Store in an airtight container for 1-2 days.
- Freezing: Divide into 1-pound portions, flatten in freezer bags for easy stacking and quicker thawing. Frozen ground chicken lasts about 3-4 months.
Pro tip: I like to shape my ground chicken into flat rectangles before freezing. This gives more surface area for browning when I cook it later.
Tasty Ways to Use Your Ground Chicken
Now that you’ve made your ground chicken, here are some delicious ways to use it:
- Chicken burgers or patties
- Tacos or burritos
- Chili
- Meatballs
- Pasta sauces
- Asian-inspired stir-fries
- Breakfast sausage substitute
- Stuffed peppers
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I grind chicken ahead of time?
A: Yes! You can store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a few days or freeze it for later use.
Q: Is ground chicken healthy?
A: Ground chicken, especially breast meat, is a good source of lean protein. Its healthiness depends on how you cook it and what you pair it with.
Q: Does ground chicken need more seasoning than other ground meats?
A: Yes, ground chicken is milder than beef or pork, so it typically needs more seasoning to bring out its flavor.
Q: Can I mix in other ingredients when grinding?
A: I recommend grinding the chicken by itself first, then mixing in other ingredients for your specific recipe.
Final Thoughts
Making your own ground chicken at home is one of those simple kitchen skills that pays dividends in both cost savings and cooking flexibility. Once you try it, you’ll probably wonder why you ever bought the pre-packaged stuff!
I love having control over exactly what goes into my ground chicken, and being able to customize the fat content based on what I’m cooking. Plus, there’s something satisfying about knowing how to make ingredients from scratch rather than relying on what’s available at the store.
Give it a try next time you need ground chicken for a recipe – I bet you’ll be surprised at how simple it really is!
Do you have a favorite way to use ground chicken? I’d love to hear about your recipes in the comments!
And Tyler Kord’s chicken and broccoli meatballs are the perfect place to use it.
Published OnOctober 14, 2019
Chicken is pretty much universally beloved—every part of it. The white meat is tender, lean, and mild; the dark meat a little richer and gamier; the wings and other bonier parts chock-full of the meats essence. In recipes, each has a purpose: chicken breasts offer a juicy blank canvas for powerful bursts of flavor to shine, like this smoky grilled rendition; thighs bring an unctuousness and meatiness anywhere theyre involved, and can stand up to braising (no less, in chocolate milk!) for extended periods to become helplessly tender. And the bones and skin and other tendony bits of chicken offer deep—well—chickeniness to stock; they also bring a whole lot of the protein, collagen, that helps make stock thick and luxurious (well get into this topic another time).
But today, were not here to talk about the nuances of tender braised chicken thighs or a smoky, juicy grilled chicken breast. Today, were here to talk about chicken meatballs, aka chicken thats been blown to smithereens. Specifically, were exploring Chicken & Broccoli Meatball Subs with Apple Giardiniera by Tyler Kord, chef–owner of No. 7 Restaurant and author of our most recent cookbook, Dynamite Chicken. Because it turns out that blown-to-smithereens chicken can have a whole lot of nuance, too.
The recipe is in a chapter of Dynamite Chicken thats aptly named “Dishes to Get Your Picky Kids to Eat Real Food, Chicken Edition.” Tyler was inspired by his own childhood to create the dish. He explains in the recipes headnote: “Growing up, my mother cooked dinner for our family most nights. On the rare occasions when my parents went out, we either ate pizza or got Chinese food. Because of this, chicken and broccoli has consistently been one of the most important relationships in my life. This sandwich harnesses that magic…and rounds it out with mayo and cilantro. But feel free to skip the sandwich and just eat these meatballs, as an amazing snack straight out of the refrigerator.” And because Tyler wanted to show , he and his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Barbara, made the meatballs together in the (unbelievably adorable) video above.
As we know from the video, and from common sense, chicken meatballs are made primarily from ground chicken. I know, I know, ground chicken often comprises too-lean meat that can be flavorless and insipid, dry and mealy. Meaning that your chicken meatballs can be flavorless and insipid, dry and mealy, and not worth your time.
Not Tylers. Despite the ways ground chicken may have wronged you in the past, his broccoli meatballs prove that ground chicken can definitely be delicious, and most certainly deserves your attention. Its all about his unique approach.
“At the grocery stores by my house,” Tyler tells me, “the only ground chicken I can usually find is from one of the big, industrial chicken producers. The package has all of the right words: No Antibiotics, Cage Free, etc. but I still can’t get behind it. So I grind my own! It’s not hard and you can just use a food processor.
“I recommend using chicken thighs for this because they’re tougher and fattier, which makes for better texture and flavor in the ground meat. Just cut deboned chicken thighs into even, 1-inch pieces before putting them in the bowl of the processor, because if they go in even, they are more likely to come out even. Then, working in small batches, us the pulse function to chop them up enough so theyre ground, but not so much that you end up making a mousse—which is good for some things, but not exactly what people have in mind for meatballs!”
So, Tylers meatballs start with a great foundation—moist, flavorful chicken thigh meat—and get a hand from blitzed-up broccoli, Parmesan cheese, and an egg to bind them up.
But the meat is not the only way Tyler sneaks in extra flavor and texture into the dish. The other secret ingredient in these meatballs is something you might see more often at your breakfast table, atop pancakes and waffles and steaming bowls of oatmeal. Yep, Tyler puts of all things, maple syrup—just a bit!—into his meatball mix. And you really cant tell that its there! But again, Tyler explains why he does this:
“Every single chicken dish you make is like a glass of lemonade. That might sound dumb, but hear me out. Lemonade is pretty much always good, but if you strike the right balance of sweet, sour, bitter, and salty (yes, there should be just the tiniest amount of salt in lemonade), it can be the most delicious beverage in the “known” universe. The same is true of a plate of chicken. By tasting and tweaking acid, salt, and sugar, I tried to turn each of the dishes in this book into the most perfect glass of lemonade that I could. To do this, I often used two important ingredients: distilled white vinegar and maple syrup.
Even though maple syrup has a distinct flavor, for whatever mystical reason it just blends into food in ways that I don’t understand, and improves it by balancing and enhancing salty, sour, and bitter elements. Try making the meatballs without the maple syrup first, by mixing everything together, cooking off a tiny bit of the meat mixture in a sauté pan, and tasting it. Then mix in the syrup and cook it and try it again, and the difference will be crystal clear. You’ll taste the savory chickeniness even more when you add sweetness.”
Wacky? Sure, maybe a little. But it works—an extra insurance policy against ground chickens typical insipidity.
And it especially works in conjunction with the next couple steps: shape the meatballs; stick them in the oven until cooked through (and, ideally, slightly caramelized); top with salty–sweet pickled apples and fennel, spiced with star anise (thats apple giardiniera, to you); place said meatballs and giardiniera on a mayo-doused hero roll; enjoy the heck out of it.
Is there a lot going on, with the meatballs, and the maple syrup, and the mayo, and the salty–sweet pickled fennel and apples? Perhaps. But again, it works: According to Samin Nosrat in Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, we should “always balance sweetness with acid, and not only in desserts. Anything thats developed sweetness from browning”—like our maple-y chicken meatballs that have further caramelized in the oven—”will always appreciate a squeeze of lemon or a touch of vinegar. A little will go a long way.”
If theres anything Ive learned lately, its that we should always listen to Samin. And Tyler, of course.
Whats your favorite way to enjoy ground chicken? Let us know in the comments!