Boneless Chicken Thighs
Ok UKFrugal; Let's talk chicken thighs! I just made a succulent chicken pie that called for skinless boneless thighs. My local supermarket sells these, and they also sell regular thighs.... but which is the better value? I felt a spreadsheet coming on! Below is the price/kg for both, and the yield I got:
| Pack Weight (kg) | Price | Yield (kg) | Price per kg | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal thighs | 1 | £2.99 | 0.675 | £4.43 |
| Skinless boneless thighs | 1 | £6.95 | 1 | £6.95 |
| Saving | £3.96 | £2.52 |
Ah, but my time is valuable I hear you say! How valuable? not especially as I'm spending it making asinine reddit posts about chicken thighs, but it has value nonetheless. I therefore timed how long it took to skin and debone 0.675kg (net) of thighs. in this pack that was 4 thighs, which took just over 5min total. This effectively means you're paying someone £20.42/hr to bone your chicken (phrasing).
But wait, there's more. The pie needed a roux. Fat is fat effectively so 50g of butter could be sub'd for 50g of fat from the skins, saving another £0.37 on material, and bringing the total hourly labour rate to £24.86/hr, or £48,477/yr. Then we have to consider that this saving is tax-free. To make an equivalent through working, you'd need a salary of £61.5k/yr.
(You also still have the crispy skins left over for Bahn mi etc., and the bones can be collected for stock....but that's harder to put a figure on)
In conclusion, debone your chicken if you're on less than £61.5k (or you like crispy chicken skin).
Thank you for coming to my ted talk
(This is not an entirely serious post, but I thought it was quite interesting how much we pay for convenience)