Cooking without skin

sweetpea7441

Hi. How come its better to cook your chicken without the skin? I don't eat the skin, but its so much easier to grill it with the skin on and then remove it. Does it make such a difference? We don't do skinless meats here and I LOVE chicken legs. Thanks.

Rohnic

i guess when you cook it with the skin you release all the fat that's in the skin. That way it ends up on your plate somehow?
Sorry I'm just guessworking

sweetpea7441

Thats what I figured, but absolutely hate touching raw chicken legs... Ugh... Nevermind having to pull the skin off... :-)

JesterMFP

It's not necessarily "better", just means the finished product is lower fat, since a lot of fat is stored under the skin. Removing the skin can also make the chicken much drier as it cooks. After tracking both, I decided that there's not enough of a calorie difference in it to make it worth it. I leave skin on and it tastes much better - keeps the meat moist as it cooks. If the skin ends up crispy, I eat it (yum!), if it's still kind of flabby (due to cooking method) I just remove it once it's cooked. In the end, it depends if the extra calories or fat bothers you.

Rohnic

Haha, i totally understand the no touching of the raw chicken!
I do it like Jester does, cook it with it and if it's crispy I'll eat it, if not, i chuck it.