Or the supermarkets selling rubbery chicken?!

[elm26]

I've had chicken breasts and a whole chicken in the last 2 weeks that have had this weird rubbery texture when cooked. It's really off putting and ends up being binned. I'm not over cooking it. This has been happening at least once a month with a batch of chicken (a big pack of 8 breast) or a whole chicken etc for a while now. I've tried Sainsbury's, Tescos, Waitrose and Asda and I've had a batch from each of them. Does anyone know what is happening here?!

I might just switch to chicken thigh, I've cooked a large chicken tonight for a mini roast and was going to use the leftover meat in a soup and a pasta dish this week but all of us have had to bin it and that's £9 down the drain 😩

Omg I'm so glad I found this thread. DH bought chicken thighs from Asda last month and it had a really strange texture once cooked. I thought I'd overcooked it somehow and yet it was still firm as if it was raw. They were roasted the day we bought them so they weren't off or old or anything like that.

I no longer eat chopped chicken breasts for this reason. If we are intending to eat chicken i either bash a breast out flat or buy a whole chicken roast and put in sauce and cook for a while.
I have found it doesnt matter where you buy it from. I've had breasts from a really high quality butchers that have had the same issue. The only difference with them is that I was able to have a chat with the butcher and he gave us some free breasts.

Haven't read the full thread, but woody chicken breast seems to be associated with industrially-produced chicken from broiler breeds that grow very fast. Chris van Tulleken did a very interesting series about this issue last year: Fed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001tgkz

My link seems to go to the last episode, but click on "more episodes" and then on episode one!

Wow just came on and didn't expect so many replies! Woody chicken makes sense, it's exactly how it's described. Unfortunately the closest butchers is an hour round trip however I might just do it once a month if it's going to provide better quality. For now I've stopped buying whole chickens and chicken breast, it's really put me off.

@elm26 double check with the butcher. They may offer delivery within your radius.

Try meat food vans who often come around at certain days of the week also their is plenty of delivery butchers in the uk to

Theirs no need to miss out even if their isn't a butcher near you lots of online butchers will deliver anywhere