To ask why all the chicken thigh hate?

[crumpetswithjam]

I pretty much exclusively cook with chicken thighs, mainly because they're cheaper, but also because they have more flavour than breasts. Occasionally I might buy breasts and dice them for stir fries or fajitas but that's v occasional.

Today I went to buy some chicken for kebabs for dinner, obviously looked for thighs. Did I find any? Nope: breasts as far as the eye could see. Six breasts. Four breasts. Two breasts. Breast mini fillets. Diced breast. Breast strips.

Two measly sad-looking packs of 3/4 thighs, use by date today.

Where are all the thighs going, or have we now managed to genetically engineer giant-breasted legless chickens?

Chicken thighs rule in the slow cooker, cook them for a few hours and the meat all falls off the bone anyway.

From the Sainsbury's site just now
breast £8.33 per kilo
thigh £2.60 per kilo
thigh has always been far cheaper than breast

I hate breasts they are so dry unless I do a salt water marinade for them.

Yes totally agree! I’m with you OP, I absolutely love chicken thighs, but not at all a fan of chicken breast.

Not if it’s from an organic chicken though, surely?

Always been a thigh fan here. And wings. I love a wing. Suspect some on this thread would throw them away 😱

Unfortunately I think the world is starting to catch on to the joy of thighs.

Where I am (Aus) chicken breast and thigh cost pretty much the same now, I’m sure thigh used to be cheaper. What were traditionally “secondary cuts” of meat like lamb shank and beef brisket are also not far off prime cut prices too as they are fashionable 😐

You keep telling yourself that 🙄

I'm with you on this @DilemmaDelilah. Even bought skinless/boneless, they're pretty disgusting on the inside - I don't like them at all.

Conversely, I adore chicken breasts and could happily eat them every single day.

I regularly do a whole chicken and the thighs are the bits that none of especially want to eat even though they're cooked perfectly well and there's nothing wrong with them. They're just a bit yucky to deal with.

From the Tesco site:

Breast fillets £5.75/kg, Thigh fillets £6.00/kg

Thigh fillets are boneless. On the bone is cheaper.

I love thigh and leg meat off a whole cooked chicken, but have never managed to successfully cook thighs and make them palatable separately.

@SeemsSoUnfair roast them after rubbing in seasoning and let them get really crispy on outside, the meat inside will be so tender and moist and fall away from the bone.

Not if you cook them properly. I do much prefer thighs and legs myself but I also love a lively moist (shudder) breast of cooked right

Yes of course it goes around the body. As a farmer that raises chickens, I tend to think my BF husband has good reason to know what he is on about

He's not an expert in immunology though. Is he?

No not an expert in immunology, but knows all about what drugs go into his hens and side effects. I respect his opinion as someone who has been doing a job for 30 years and well respected in his field.

I had a conversation with my butcher about thighs Vs breast meat. From him, gram for gram, there is little difference in the price of the two cuts. In Sainsbury's, breast is considerably cheaper per gram, almost £2 per kilo.
Breast meat is actually a by-product these days, rather than the other way round as restaurants buy the wings and legs in abundance.
The current fallacy that thigh meat is cheaper is driving people to buy thigh meat, leaving all the breast meat behind. 640g of thigh meat is 3 chickens, 640g of breast meat is 1.5 chickens.

Ps. My price comparison is for boneless thighs otherwise it isn't like for like.

Of course it’s not like for like. The benefit of meat on the bone is the flavour and tenderness that comes from cooking meat on the bone. Do you compare steak with mince?

@coc I take it he is a vegetarian?

We usually cook a few thighs for a roast dinner, rather than a full chicken. No waste or unwanted leftovers. My family don't really want to eat chicken 3 nights in a row!

I live for inside dirt like this. The last butcher in my town closed down last year, so unless I subscribe to expensive delivery schemes I am stuck with supermarket offerings.

I have no idea how people stretch a whole chicken to three meals. My husband and I can polish off a whole medium chicken in one sitting.

Most chefs cook with thighs - they are always recommending them when cooking on tv.