How To Perfectly Cut An Airline Chicken Breast Every Time

Its name might conjure up memories of a meal you didn't enjoy in economy class, but airline chicken breast is actually quite elegant and should be your new go-to for a date night or dinner party. You may wonder just what exactly an airline chicken breast is and how to prepare it, and although a butcher could extract the breasts for you from a whole chicken at an additional cost, it's more economical to do it yourself. 

Cutting an airline chicken breast isn't much more difficult than cutting up a whole chicken — it simply involves removing a section of each chicken wing to leave the drumette attached. You'll need a large cutting board so that you're free to move the chicken around as you cut, and a sharp boning knife is essential. There is a vast array of types of knifes to use, but a flexible boning knife from a brand like Victorinox is best for cutting away meat close to the bone.

Start with a three- to four-pound chicken breast and stretch out one of the wings, gripping it by the wing-tip half, almost like a handle. Begin to cut the skin and meat at the center of the drumette, revolving the chicken while keeping the knife in place. When you've finished cutting all around the drumette, bend the wing tip until it pops out, then tug it off, leaving the drumette bone intact. Repeat the process with the second wing, and save the wing tips and the rest of the carcass for homemade chicken stock.

Once you've given the chicken wings the airline treatment, you'll guide the boning knife around the chicken's breastbone and slice the entire breast until it releases from the carcass. Continue to break down the rest of the bird for chicken thigh recipes or honey-butter drumsticks. This particular way of preparing chicken breast originates in France, where it's known as chicken breast supreme. 

Before airlines adopted the technique in the 1960s, it was called "frenched" — the method for cleaning bone when prepping a cut of meat so that it's aesthetically pleasing — or Statler chicken, named for the Statler Hotel in Boston, where it was served in the 1930s. Airlines allegedly began serving it because the drumette made it easier to hold onto the breast when eating if one felt so inclined to pick it up like a drumstick, although some claim it was named airline chicken breast because of its physical resemblance to an airplane.

A hallmark of airline chicken breast is that the drumette bone modulates the heat so that the breast meat is evenly cooked and remains juicy. Airline chicken breast is best cooked by searing it in a skillet on the stovetop, which renders an extra crispy skin and gives you more control in preventing it from drying out. You can adapt a number of chicken breast recipes when cooking an airline chicken breast, and since it's pan-seared, you can make a luxurious pan sauce or a French-inspired airline chicken recipe with a shallot-mustard sauce.