How to Reduce Chicken Cooking Time

To get chicken dinners on the table in a hurry for busy weeknight meals, consider size during preparation.

Cooking speed comes down to surface area. The more surface area exposed to heat, the faster the meat cooks. A whole chicken roasts in about one hour; flatten that bird and it’s 40 minutes. Reduce to parts and it’s close to half that again. So the way you prepare your chicken can slash cooking time more efficiently than the cooking method itself.

The downside is the risk of overcooking, which increases as the size of the pieces get smaller. It takes more attention to timing with stir-frying 1-inch pieces than when cooking a whole chicken, for example.

But with a few easy tricks and recipes, getting a boldly flavorful weeknight chicken meal on the table will be fast and effortless. Continue reading to see our 6 favorite ways to prep and cook chicken, and discover new recipes for each method.

Spatchcocking Whole Chicken

If you want to cook a whole bird in a hurry, cut out the backbone—using a stout knife or shears to pierce the ribcage—and use firm pressure to press the whole bird flat. It not only cooks in a much less time than a whole chicken, it cooks it more evenly and produces crisper skin thanks to full contact with the cooking surface. It’s our go-to method for whole birds—unless we’re stuffing the cavity or presentation is key. Check out more detail on how to spatchcock a chicken here.

Piri Piri Chicken - Milk Street
Piri Piri Chicken - Milk Street

Spatchcocked Chicken Recipes

Slashing Chicken Parts

While we like whole chicken parts for the flavor and moisture imparted to the meat by the bones and skin, it takes longer to cook than boneless pieces. For faster cooking, we slash the parts crosswise to the bone, which creates more surface area by exposing the meat for faster cooking. Plus, flavorings can penetrate deeper into the flesh for a richer flavor and there’s more edges to brown and crisp—a win-win technique.

Chipotle-Lime Slashed Chicken - Milk Street
Chipotle-Lime Slashed Chicken - Milk Street

Slashed Chicken Recipes

Butterflying Chicken Into Cutlets

Slicing chicken breasts crosswise into cutlets, otherwise known as butterflying, means they’ll cook in half the time—2 to 3 minutes per side. Sliced into even thinner portions, what French call paillards, means they’ll cook even faster. Cutlets are typically served with simple pan sauces to ensure they don’t track as dry, which a real risk with ultrathin white-meat chicken. But these cutlet recipes pack the flavor in.

Chicken Cutlets with Avocado-Poblano Sauce - Milk Street
Chicken Cutlets with Avocado-Poblano Sauce - Milk Street

Chicken Cutlet Recipes

Stir-Frying Chicken

Reducing boneless white or dark meat down to bite-sized bits means it’ll cook through in moments, especially in a red-hot skillet. The risk is overcooking—and why we typically favor dark meat over white for stir-frying. In many stir-fry recipes, the chicken is coated in an egg white and cornstarch slurry (which is called velveting) to maintain moisture. Just make sure to have all your ingredients prepared next to the stove since stir-fries come together lightning fast.

Spicy Stir-Fried Chicken and Snow Peas - Milk Street
Spicy Stir-Fried Chicken and Snow Peas - Milk Street

Chicken Stir-Fry Recipes

Using Ground Chicken

Ground meat obviously cooks the fastest because of its tiny size. It also requires no knife work to ready for the pan. Thai cooks make quick salads of ground meats infused with bold-flavored sauces and tossed with handfuls of herbs. It suits the tropical weather—when nobody wants to spend time over a hot burner—and requires little fuel to prepare.

Ginger-Lime Chicken and Herb Salad - Milk Street
Ginger-Lime Chicken and Herb Salad - Milk Street

Ground Chicken Recipes

Baking Chicken and Sides on a Sheet Pan

The word traybake may conjure thoughts of English cooking, the sort popularized by Nigella Lawson—throw some ingredients on a baking sheet, pop it into a hot oven and, voilà, you have dinner. But cooks around the world manage to pack these one-sheet meals with flavor. They may take a bit longer than some of the techniques we’ve listed here, but the slightly extra time is matched by convenience. Add some seasonings and your main and side are cooked at once, and we often take advantage of the juices released to make a quick pan sauce.

Greek Chicken and Potato Traybake - Milk Street
Greek Chicken and Potato Traybake - Milk Street

Chicken Traybake/Sheet Pan Recipes


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