How To Shred Chicken [3 Easy Methods]

There are many ways to make food into smaller portions for either cooking or eating. You can do this by cutting it, mincing it, or shredding it into tinier pieces.

What it depends on is how small you are going to want the food. Shredding food is especially useful because it can help get it into small, thin pieces that easily fit in your food.

One food people might want to shred is chicken. In this article, we will tell you everything you need to know about shredding the chicken, and by the end, you’ll be an expert at it!

Contents

What Kind of Chicken Should You Use for Shredding?
How Should You Cook Chicken Before Shredding?
How Do You Shred Chicken?
Final Thoughts

What Kind of Chicken Should You Use for Shredding?

You can’t just buy any kind of chicken and start shredding it. Certain types of chicken are better to purchase for shredding. These include:

Boneless chicken is the best type of chicken to shred because there are no bones to contend with! It can be breasts, thighs, or both!
This isn’t to say that you can’t buy chicken that has a bone in it. It just makes it a bit more difficult to shred. If you end up using bone-in chicken, it’s best to use drumsticks of a whole chicken. It’s easier to shred those types of bone-in chicken.
Always, always cook the chicken before shredding it. It’s next to impossible to shred raw chicken, so don’t even bother trying to do it. The process is going to be not only impossible but also very messy.

As long as the chicken is cooked, it doesn’t matter if it’s boneless or not. Just buy whatever is affordable for you!

How Should You Cook Chicken Before Shredding?

Remember, you need to cook the chicken before shredding it. You can do this by using one of three methods. This includes:

You can’t simmer the chicken in a skillet. To do this, put some water or olive oil in a skillet/pan and turn the heat to medium. First, cook the chicken breast for five minutes on one side before flipping it over. Then let it simmer for seven to ten minutes.
The second method is boiling the chicken. First, put the chicken in a large pot that is filled with water or chicken stock. Cover it and let it come to a boil. The next step is to turn down the heat and let it cook for about an hour.
The third and final method is using a crock pot. All you have to do is put the chicken in the crock pot, season it, and then leave it to cook for about seven hours.

It doesn’t matter how you cook the chicken. Just use whatever method works best for you and your schedule.

How Do You Shred Chicken?

Once the chicken is cooked, you can start shredding it. We’ve narrowed it down to three methods you can use for shredding your chicken.

Again, you can choose whatever one works best for you! Consider trying them all out if you are unsure of what will be easier for you.

Hands Method

The hand method is one of the simpler methods because all you have to do is place the chicken on a cutting board or some other surface and then shred it with your hands! To do this, use the following steps:

Once the chicken is cool, put it out on the cutting board.
Take your hands and start ripping up the chicken. You can shred it into whatever size you prefer it to be.
Once you’re done, put it in a container and into the fridge or freezer.

It’s a messy method, but it’s simple because all you need is the cutting board.

Fork Method

The fork method is the second proven way to shred your chicken. To start, you must do the following steps:

Once the chicken is cool, put it on a cutting board.
Grab your two forks and position them at the center of the chicken.
Then start pulling the chicken apart. You can shred it into whatever size you feel it should be and put it in an airtight container once you are done.

This is a less messy version than the hand method because you won’t end up with chicken up in your fingernails.

Mixer Method

The mixer method should only be used on boneless chicken since you’ll be using some type of automatic mixer to shred up the chicken.

Imagine if a bone were to get stuck up in the electric mixer. It won’t be pretty!

To this, you must do the following steps:

Put the chicken in a bowl. It should be a deep bowl because you don’t want the chicken to go flying out all over!
Plug in the hand mixer and break apart the chicken at low speed. It’s best to use a slow speed because the chicken will go flying all over the place if it’s medium or high. The faster it is, the more of a mess it’ll make!
Keep using the mixer until you are satisfied with the size of the chicken. You may need to break up some of the chicken by hand, depending on if there are any large pieces left over.

This method is the quickest one out of all of them. If you do happen to have a mixer, consider using it because this way, you won’t be spending all your time standing there shredding chicken!

Final Thoughts

And there you go, all your chicken lovers out there! We went into how you can shred chicken and the three best methods to do it.

Not only that, but we also felt like it was important to discuss what type of chicken you can use and that it must be cooked.

Shredded chicken can be used for many meals. If you can’t figure out what to use it for, then just either keep it in the fridge or put it in your freezer. Once you pick a meal, then take it out and get to cooking!

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William Thomas

I have been smoking and grilling meat from an early age and enjoy sharing my knowledge and expertise through the hundreds of articles I have written about BBQ. I hope to make everyone’s BBQ journey that little bit easier.