Counting the weight of a chicken breast. Either for a diet or cooking purposes. Its safe to assume there is an average amount that most weigh. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts can be calculated to weigh between these amounts.
On average a raw skinless and boneless chicken breast will weigh between 3 to 8 ounces. The weight will decrease by 1 to 2 ounces or about 25% as it shrinks from cooking.
Sizes do vary with each chicken breast, but generally they don’t get much larger than 12 oz. Today’s poultry breasts are larger and 8 – 10 oz sizes are very common in grocery stores.
The recommend serving size for chicken breasts is 3 – 4 ounces.
You can get a good estimate by knowing how to judge various weights using a few easy methods. Eventually you will be able to estimate fairly easily each weight without needing a scale.
Average Weight of Chicken Breast
Rarely do I buy a single chicken breast from the meat department. Since packaged chicken breast is more convenient and cost effective. They typically come with three or four boneless breast per pack.
The weight of each package is slightly different and priced per pound. I don’t always do the math to see what each breast might way individually.
Check the packages total weight and divide that by the number of chicken breast. This will give you roughly the size of each breast.
Chicken breasts can range in size from 2 ounces up to 12. Commonly a serving size of a chicken filet is 4 oz.
There is one good way to judge the various sizes without a scale. You can eyeball the weights after some experience.
A good serving of chicken is slightly smaller than a human hand. Anything bigger and that is a very large chicken breast. That would probably weight in around 10 or more ounces.
This is another way to judge portions of food. The recommended serving for meats is equal to the palm size of your hand.
How Many Boneless Chicken Breasts In A Pound
Chicken breast sizes vary from different packages. Each pack they come in should give the total weight. Since they are priced per pound and usually overall the pack is more than one pound.
You can estimate if you don’t have the wrapping or labeling for whatever reason. Maybe you threw it away already, but you want to know how much chicken you bought.
Depending on the size of your chicken breast, but generally you could say two chicken breast are going to be around one pound.
Two 8 oz chicken breast would be equal to one pound in weight. Eight ounce chicken breast is fairly large.
In comparison a 4 ounce raw boneless chicken breast is about the size of a deck of cards. A 8 – 10 ounce chicken breast is comparable to the biggest iPhone.
16 ounces in a pound so you would need 4 of those to equal one pound.
A lot of times a pack of poultry breasts give a weight measurement in grams. One pound is equal to 450 grams, so again using the deck of card comparison. One hundred grams is about a serving size equal to the size of a deck of cards.
If the package using kilograms or KG, then you can figure it is more than one pound. Since 1 kilogram is equal to around 2.2 pounds.
The easiest way to get this measurment is to look for a pack weighing in close to one pound. Each package varies in weight so pick through a few to find one close.
Also using a kitchen scale is the most exact way to weigh each chicken breast.
How Much Does An Average Chicken Breast Weigh In Grams?
On average a raw boneless skinless chicken breast will weigh between 85 grams (3 oz) to 225 grams (8 oz). 1 ounce is equal to 28 grams.
What Are Chicken Breast Halves?
Chickens grown today are much larger than they were 40 years ago. This is due to selective breeding and better nutrition.
This means the chicken breasts are much larger as well, and could continue to increase in size. Actually chickens don’t even have breasts. What we call the breast is actually a pectoral muscle.
The muscle appears on both sides of the chickens chest. Then it is cut where this almost natural separation occurs. That is why they are sometimes called breast halves.
So if you see a recipe calling for breast halves, remember this is just another way of saying chicken breast. You don’t have to cut it in half to get the correct amount.
Reasoning for calling them breasts is because of where they appear in the chicken. A chicken doesn’t have nipples but it does a muscle attached to its ribs called breasts.
Does Frozen Chicken Weigh More?
Frozen meats or chicken does not weigh more than thawed. Frozen water collecting on the meat might add a very small amount of weight.
Overall the weight is not going to be any different between frozen and thawed. So you can go ahead and weigh them frozen if you are using a scale. The weight will not change when you thaw it out.
Raw Weight vs Cooked
Cooking meat is going to decrease a lot of the raw weight. Notice a lot of meats shrink when they are cooked. Because of lot of the water and fat is cooked away, taking away some of the original weight.
Chicken is no different and actually shrinks quite a lot during the cooking process. The general consensus is that chicken, beef and even fish shrink by about 25 percent.
Size of the chicken breast does affect how much it shrinks. Since the 25% of a larger number is more. A larger chicken breast is going to shrink more than a smaller one.
The difference is not very noticeable, but for comparison a 4 oz breast will shrink to a 3 oz. A 8 oz will shrink down to around 6 oz of meat left.
Any type of cooking method that drys the meat will cause it to shrink. Boiling or braising does not cause meat to shrink as much.
Here is a basic table giving the difference weights for chicken after being cooked.
| Raw | Cooked |
| 4 oz | 3 oz |
| 6 oz | 4.5 oz |
| 8 oz | 6 oz |
| 10 oz | 7.5 oz |
Can You Cook Onions With Raw Chicken?
How To Portion Chicken Breast
You can cut down chicken breast that are too large for cooking. It is hard to find decent size portions of poultry sometimes.
As mentioned chickens are getting bigger and the cuts are large. Sometimes more than one person can eat. So here is a easy way to cut down a chicken breast before cooking.
This can be useful as well to get the sizes equal for even cooking. Also doing this reduces cooking time.
You are going to want to cut the chicken breast in half. The mistake people make when doing this is they slice downward and vertical. Leaving two thick slices of chicken.
You want to end up with two chicken halves that are both flat on one end. The flat sides should be the larger of the surfaces.
Butterflying or butterfly slicing is the term used for this type of cutting. I added a extra step to get two separate pieces of chicken.
- Place left hand on top of chicken breast
- Place knife sideways halfway down on chicken breast
- Let the knife do the work and slice across from right to left. (opposite if you’re left handed)
- Then slice down the middle of the heart shaped chicken breast.
Sources:
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400525/Data/retn/USDA_CookingYields_MeatPoultry.pdf