If it’s your first time, you might be a little anxious if you don’t know how to boil chicken thighs. Boiled chicken thighs are common in cuisines throughout the world, and it would be helpful if you knew how to do it. How long do you boil chicken thighs? Let’s find out!
How Long Does It Take to Boil Chicken Thighs?
How long to boil chicken thighs?
Chicken thighs are probably the most popular parts of a chicken, so it makes sense that they frequently occur in many recipes. If you’re preparing a fried dish or a stew, or even poached chicken, it pays to know how long to cook chicken thighs and other parts of the chicken.
If you want to boil an entire adult chicken, the cooking time is eighty to ninety minutes. There are no specific steps here. Just add the chicken to the pot, fill past the halfway mark to make sure that the chicken is submerged completely, and then let the stovetop do its thing.
The pot must be lidded to conserve the heat, but make sure that some steam can escape. If the pot keeps overflowing, that is normal and can be avoided if you lift the lid partially to the side to let out more steam.
Another method is to lift the lid completely and turn down the heat a notch or two to reduce the amount of heat in the liquid. When the bubbles have gone down, replace the lid, and you are back on track.
Use a meat thermometer to monitor if the chicken meat has attained an acceptable 165 ºF or 74 ºC. Investing in an instant-read thermometer would be helpful at this point, especially if you plan to cook large batches of meat on the stovetop or in the oven.
If you are boiling a batch of chicken thighs, follow the same process. A kilogram of chicken thighs would take 45 minutes to an hour to cook. Insert the meat thermometer into the most muscle-bound or thickest part of the chicken thigh to monitor the temperature.
Follow the same internal temperature for whole boiled chicken. When checking the internal temperature of any part of a chicken, the tip of the thermometer mustn’t touch bone. You might end up with a false reading if you do so since bone doesn’t heat the same way as muscle tissue.
How do you boil chicken thighs with bone?
When cooking chicken thighs with bone, we always begin with high heat until the water comes to a roaring boil. Then we remove the lid and turn down the heat one notch, so it’s medium heat. Replace the lid of the pot and just let the chicken continue cooking until you reach the 45-minute mark.
Take note that frozen chicken is going to take longer to cook. If you want a shorter cooking time, defrost the chicken thighs in advance. Follow the correct method for defrosting meats.
We recommend either placing the chicken thighs in the refrigerator for a day (24 hours) to thaw it out naturally. After thawing, you need to cook it immediately. You cannot put back thawed out chicken thighs to the freezer as this would encourage a sudden spike in bacterial proliferation the next time you thaw the chicken.
Thawed out chicken that has not been brought out of the refrigerator can only be stored for a maximum of a week. Thawed meats need to be cooked, so don’t thaw more than what you need.
How much stock is needed for a big bird or a large number of thighs or drumsticks?
The best recourse is to add enough water to cover the entire bird or the batch of chicken parts that you want to cook. Not adding enough water will likely cause the pot to dry out, and you may end up with a dry bird or a partially cooked batch of thighs with bone.
Some people don’t like doing this because they need to fill a large pot up to the bring in most situations to cover a large quantity of chicken. Be that as it may, this remains the best method because it ensures even cooking throughout the pot.
If there is too much water, the pot will keep overflowing. You can probably reduce the quantity of water a little, but not so much that most of the meat is exposed to air.
Are Boiled Chicken Thighs Healthy?
A quick look at the different effects of cooking methods on poultry reveals that yes, boiling chicken is the best way to prepare healthier meat. If you want to be truly healthy with your chicken consumption, it’s best to boil the chicken and then remove the skin to get rid of the extra fat.
The skin is the fattiest portion of the chicken, and this is also where most of the salt adheres when you are baking and frying. Nonetheless, boiled chicken thighs are a good way to control the calories when you are trying to lose weight.
How Long Should I Boil Chicken Thighs Before Grilling?
Pre-boiling chicken before grilling is the best way to ensure that they would come out juicy and cooked. Take note that you must not cook through the chicken all the way through before grilling, so halve the time to ensure that the rest of cooking will be done through the application of heat from the grill. Pre-boiling chicken is an especially great way to ensure that the meat provides a natural lock for the moisture inside. This way, even with the grill’s intense heat, there would still be some moisture left in the chicken for later. Don’t forget to apply the barbecue sauce or whatever sauce you have prepared to make the chicken even more tender and flavorful.
