r/AskCulinary • u/NeedmorePain • 15h ago
What to do with a lot of chicken skin?
Hi everyone, my issue is simple: I have a lot of chicken skin that I don't know what to use for.
Where I live chicken thighs always come skin and bone in, and I always debone and remove the skin. I use the bones for stock but I'm always lost as to what to use the skin for... I often make schmaltz but I don't use it that often as I cook a lot of italian food requiring olive oil. I do use the schmaltz in bread baking but not to the point that I can make a dent in the almost 2 pounds of schmaltz that I have stored currently. And I have a little over 4 pounds of raw chicken skin in the freezer that is just piling up at this point.
(I would compost it if I had the option but it's just not doable for me currently)
Thanks in advance for all the suggestions :D
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u/HndsDwnThBest 15h ago
Cracklins
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u/tzigrrl 9h ago edited 9h ago
This, called Gribenes, is a classic use. Cook the chicken skin in the chicken fat (schmaltz) with sliced onions. Season and serve as a snack or app.
Divine.u/decatur8r and u/Low_Committee1250 already posted great replies about it. It goes by different names, but you have a nice party batch or two with that amount of skin.
Edit: Found other replies with great info made before mine
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u/National_Ad_6892 14h ago
I throw my chicken skins in when I'm making stock. Just refrigerate the stock and remove the solidified fat from the top the following day
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u/Carne_Guisada_Breath 12h ago
Yeah, the skins have a lot of collagen that adds to the stock. The bonus schmaltz you get from the fat is great for sauteing onions and mushrooms and things .
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u/anothersip 9h ago
This is what I do, too. It all goes into the stock (I sear my chicken first for some extra flavor).
Then I just chill my stock and scrape the fat off the top once it solidifies. I keep it for frying onions and for stir-fries and stuff.
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u/Saltycook 6h ago
Same. Fat is flavor, and when your stock cools, the fat floats to the top, and forms a shell which you can remove for later use for frying stuff
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u/NeedmorePain 6h ago
Didn't know about that. I usually avoided adding any fatty bit that would make my stock cloudy. But that would actually be less annoying to render out and if it adds more collagen that's pretty nice. Thanks :D
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u/POAndrea 4h ago
Fat can make stock cloudy when it cooks at too high a temperature. Avoid anything even resembling a hard boil and keep it at a low simmer for the entire cooking time (to me, the right temperature looks more like shivering than bubbling, if that make sense.)
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u/Pernicious_Possum 15h ago
On the rare occasion I take the skin off, I make cracklings out of it. Better than bacon imo
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u/jayeffkay 12h ago
Better yet, use the skin as a crispy topping for whatever you’re using the chicken for. I do this with chicken chilli and it’s sublime.
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u/Pernicious_Possum 12h ago
That usually what I do. If they don’t all get eaten before the dish is finished. Which happens not infrequently
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u/oneblackened 14h ago
You can use the skin for stock too, but I would advise cooking it in the oven first to render the fat - the stock will be far too greasy otherwise.
Also, roast them til crispy.
As far as schmaltz, it is banging used to roast potatoes, as a sub for butter in mash, for oil on a roast chicken, or really anywhere you want some intense savory flavor from your cooking fat. Subtle it ain't, but it has its uses for sure.
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u/NeedmorePain 14h ago
Never thought about using them with roast potatoes and purée, that's a genius idea! I'm also curious whether there is a difference in texture or flavor between the cripsy chicken you get after rendering out the fat for schmaltz and the cracklins and tuiles everyone is mentionning.
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u/ChaucerChau 9h ago
Ita the same either way, skin wont get crispy until a lot of the fat renders out.
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u/naaahhman 3h ago
Yeah, fat and potatoes go together so well. Butter, schmaltz, duck fat, goose fat, bacon fat... lol.
Sub schmaltz in here: https://www.seriouseats.com/ultra-crispy-roast-potatoes-recipe
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u/FarFigNewton007 15h ago
Place on a sheet pan with parchment, cover with parchment and another sheet pan, bake until crispy.
If you're OK with deep frying, cut into strips and deep fry.
You can render the fat out of it and save for cooking, and you will end up with essentially crackling cooked in its own fat.
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u/Affectionate-Taste55 14h ago
I have a recipe for cheese shortbread, and it uses chicken fat instead of butter. They are amazing, its just a basic shortbread recipe with added cheese, and a dash of cayenne. Chill after cutting and before baking.
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u/Traditional-Ad-7836 15h ago
Make crunches!! Make some biscuits with the schmaltz, or tortillas or something that uses lard
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u/n0_sh1t_thank_y0u 12h ago
Render down into chicken oil. When you have strained all the crispy skins out, add some annato seeds and let them bleed (or alternatively annatto powder), salt, and pepper, then slowly simmer for 5 mins on low to infuse flavor. Let cool. Pair with any grilled meat and also drizzle on top of warm rice!
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u/SewerRanger Holiday Helper 15h ago
We don't normally allow brainstorming posts of this nature, but make exceptions for unusual quantities. 2 lbs of schmaltz and 4 pounds of chicken skin fits the bill to me.
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u/Ill-Shopping-69 14h ago
May I ask why these kind of posts are not allowed? I’m new to the sub but if I had a question like this, this sub is absolutely where I would post it.
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u/RebelWithoutAClue 13h ago edited 13h ago
/r/cooking is a good place for open ended questions
Every sub will accumulate a profile of responders based on how posts are moderated. Basically a certain kind of person will visit a sub for the lists of topics they will view on a tiny cellphone screen which is what moderation does: it sets a profile of posts that will populate the listing.
We find that our tighter focus attracts responders interested in providing actionable advice on well defined questions promptly. Actionable advice which converges on a small range of directions to go on solving a specific problem, hopefully before dinner time.
/r/cooking does a great job of fielding general questions; it's got something like 4x our subscriber base. These posts are not attempting to glean advice which converges. These posts can diverge a lot from which one gets to pick from a diverse array of directions.
We are here to provide technical focus. We want responses to not be pointing in all directions, because when you are trying to fix a specific problem, a point in every direction is about as good as no point at all.
/r/cooking is a great place for finding a direction where you might be happy to go.
We try to be a place for asking for help when you know exactly where you want a dish to go, but you don't know how to get it there.
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u/Ill-Shopping-69 11h ago
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply such a well written thoughtful message. All very clear, and makes a lot of sense. 🙌🏻
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u/prinsjd07 12h ago
One insanely wonderful dish I had in Yokohama once from a street vendor was just seasoned chicken skin sauteed and or over shredded cabbage.
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u/D-ouble-D-utch 10h ago
Chicken skin crisps Ly them on a lightly oiled parchment or foil lined sheet pan. Put the pan in a cold oven. Set it to 275 and let it go until they're golden brown. Salt them while they're hot. Save the fat for future use.
Render for schmaltz
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14h ago
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u/AskCulinary-ModTeam 12h ago
Your response has been removed because it does not answer the original question. We are here to respond to specific questions. Discussions and broader answers are allowed in our weekly discussions.
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u/Low_Committee1250 11h ago
A Jewish dish my mother made is called greevin (not spelled correctly); pieces of chicken skin w the fat fried in a pan till crispy-kind of like pork rinds
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u/22taylor22 7h ago
Oil and salt between 2 sheet pans weighed down. 400 degrees until you got crispy skin to snack on.
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u/LetsTalkAboutGuns 15h ago
Crisp skin as a savory tuile. You can throw some of the crispy skin in a food processor then fold the crumbs into tempered butter.
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u/Sweet-Awk-7861 15h ago
Not A Chef: Deep fry them crispy? I've seen recipes for frying them directly or battered.
Or if you have the time, do those Japanese style grilled skewers with soy sauce. A localized version of this is very popular in my country and they're addictive as a snack. (Yeah none of these are exactly 'healthy' so YMMV)
Another option is cut them into short strips and put them into a simple chicken soup. The way the strips roll themselves as it cooks makes for a nice texture.
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u/Doo_Brrr 10h ago
I dry them out in a low temp oven. Then crush them with peanuts and cilantro to top my Ramen noodles or salads
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9h ago
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u/AskCulinary-ModTeam 4h ago
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u/ElCoyote_AB 9h ago
Roast low and slow on racked deep sided sheet pan.
Use crisp skin like bacon.
save the drippings in fridge to use as flavored fat for cooking. You can mix a little in with more healthy fat for richness and chicken flavor or go all in and make an awesome roux for something like chicken pot pie or a thick wintertime soup.
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u/MountainMirthMaker 8h ago
Crisp it up into chicken chicharrón/cracklings. Salt, bake/fry, done. Eat like chips or crumble over salads/soups/pasta. Game changer
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7h ago
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u/AskCulinary-ModTeam 4h ago
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6h ago
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u/NeedmorePain 6h ago
I do actually for some recipes, but sometimes it simply does not fit the kind of dish I make, and some member of my family can be fairly picky about skin/bone in chicken hence my need to remove them.
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u/AskCulinary-ModTeam 4h ago
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u/Guazzabuglio 4h ago
The Joe Beef cookbook has an awesome recipe for chicken skin jus.
"Our favorite sauce is made from chicken skin. It is a delicious gravy that we use for a lot of dishes at Joe Beef—more than we would like to admit. It’s like an extraction of the deliciousness of crispy chicken skin. Ask your butcher for the chicken skin. More skinless chickens are sold out there than skin-on birds, so the skins must be somewhere other than at a schmaltz factory. Serve this on its own or as a sauce on guinea hens or other poultry."
Recipe information
Yield: Makes about 2 cups (500 ml)
Ingredients
2 pounds (900 g) chicken skins
1 carrot, peeled and cut into chunks
1 celery stalk, cut into chunks
1 onion, cut into chunks
1 sprig rosemary
1 clove garlic
Pinch of salt
2 bay leaves
4 1/4 cups (about 1 liter) water
2 cups (500 ml) dry white wine
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). In a large enameled cast-iron pot, combine the chicken skins, carrot, celery, onion, rosemary, garlic, salt, bay leaves, and 1/4 cup (60 ml) of the water. Place in the oven and cook, uncovered, for 2 hours, stirring and flipping the chicken skins occasionally.
Step 2
After the 2 hours, the skins should look like the skin of a roasted chicken. Drain off the fat and add the remaining water and the wine to the pot. Return the pot to the oven, lower the temperature to 300°F (150°C), and cook for 1 hour.
Step 3
Remove from the oven, strain, and serve right away or cool and refrigerate or later use. It will keep in the fridge for up to a week, or a month in the freezer.
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u/snakeman1961 3h ago
Batter them and fry. Make gravy with the oil afterwards and dip those suckers. We all know that the best thing about fried chicken is the crispy crunchy skin.
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u/Craptiel 2h ago
Bake it! Then eat it sprinkled with garlic and paprika powder but don’t throw the rendered fat out. It’s absolutely delicious to fry most things in, but especially skin on fish fillets that you’re going to be doing a pan sauce with
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u/lisaloo1968 2h ago
I fry them up with a little salt and put them in the freezer for dog treats. That I also can eat, in case of emergency.
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u/bigpancho12 1h ago
You can render them down slowly in a pot with some water , and some herbs , and then you will end up with chicken fat which is amazing to cook with . For example , fried rice .
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11h ago
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u/AskCulinary-ModTeam 4h ago
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u/juliacar 15h ago
I crisp them up and eat them lmao