Switch Up your Chicken!

Did you know that you can almost always replace breast meat with thighs or vice versa in most recipes? Not only are thighs, even boneless and skinless, more affordable but they have more flavour and tend to stay moister in recipes. Thighs are especially good in recipes that have to cook for longer periods of time.

It’s true that thighs have a little more fat than breast meat, but its worth a tiny bit more fat for all that extra flavour. A 75 g portion of roasted, skinless, boneless breast meat has 2 g of fat, while a 75 g portion of roasted, skinless, boneless thigh contains 5 g of fat. You also get more iron from dark meat than white meat. The same 75 g serving of breast meat contains 4 mg of iron, while the thigh contains 1.0 mg of iron. Making sure you get enough iron in your diet is especially important for women.

I really like to use thighs in curries or other dishes like Chicken Cacciatore or any recipe that requires cooking in the slow cooker. My kids prefer dark meat too. They like the flavour of it over breast meat. I cook most often at home with thighs instead of the breast and it doesn’t increase my cooking time.

You can also easily switch up ground chicken for other ground meat. You just need to increase the seasoning a little as ground chicken has a more subtle flavour.  So the next time your making spaghetti sauce with ground beef, why not try using ground chicken instead. Ground chicken makes great meatballs and meatloaf too.

Our recipe for Chicken Jambalaya would be perfect for those days when you want something a little spicier and is excellent prepared with either breast meat, as is called for in the recipe, or with boneless skinless thighs.

We also have a great, healthy recipe for meatloaf that includes chipotle peppers – Meatloaf Makeover with Chipotle Ketchup. Chipotle peppers are a hot food item right now. Let’s face it, meatloaf isn’t what your family considers a special meal, but combined with the chipotle ketchup in this recipe gives it more of a kick. If you want more spice, you could even add some pepper to the meat mixture – just buy an extra can of peppers.

Leave me a comment – I’d love to know what you think.

Tagged as: cacciatore, dark meat, Jambalaya, meatloaf, Recipes, spaghetti sauce, white meat