When buying chicken to use in a recipe to feed your family or guests, you may not know how much useable meat you will get from the whole chicken you have just bought.
In this article we will look at the different yields of meat you can expect to get from a chicken , based on both raw and cooked whole chickens.
So how much meat is there on a whole chicken? A general yield you can expect to get from a whole raw chicken after the bones have been removed is approximately 65% of the weight of the chicken. The yield from a whole cooked chicken drops to approximately 45% of the weight of the raw chicken. So a 3lb/1.36kg Whole Chicken would yield about 2lbs/0.9kg raw meat or 1.4lbs/0.6kg cooked meat.
Whole Raw Chicken Meat Yield
The yield of meat you get from a whole chicken depends on what parts of the chicken you are going to use and eat.
Obviously you will get a slightly higher yield if you are going to be leaving the skin on, than you will if you remove it.
If you just remove the bones, you can expect to get a yield of about 65% of the weight of the whole chicken.
Generally you can expect to lose another 5% if you remove the skin, and so the yield will drop to approximately 60% of the weight of the chicken.
Age and rearing techniques will also be a factor in the yield you will get, with older birds yielding less meat.
Below is a chart that gives you the approximate yield from store bought chickens ranging from 3 – 6 lbs in weight.
Whole Chicken Meat Yield Chart
Meat Yield From Chicken Portions
If you are buying chicken portions, you will get a slightly different yield depending on the chicken parts you get.
Chicken breasts yield a slightly higher meat yield than the legs but are also more expensive.
If you don’t mind eating the leg meat from a chicken, it is probably more economical for you to buy the legs, even though the yield is a little less than the breast meat.
Here is a chart showing the yield percentage of meat you can expect to get on average from the different chicken portions.
Chicken Portion Meat Yield Chart
Hopefully these two charts have given you an understanding of how much meat you can expect to get from a whole chicken, as well as the different chicken portions.
By following these guides, you should now be able to ensure you have the right amount of meat for the amount of people you are serving.
Source: Chart information provided by the Texas A&M University study
