A whole chicken on a grill is a genuinely awkward shape to cook evenly — the breast is thin and cooks fast, the thighs are thick and dense and need considerably longer, and by the time the thighs reach a safe temperature the breast is often well past its best. Spatchcocking, also called butterflying, solves this by removing the backbone and flattening the bird into a single, roughly even layer. America’s Test Kitchen has developed and tested this method extensively for both oven and grill cooking, and their specific technique is worth following closely rather than approximating.
The Spatchcocking Cut, Step by Step
America’s Test Kitchen’s method starts with the chicken breast side down on a cutting board. Using kitchen shears, cut through the bones on either side of the backbone, from tail to neck, and remove the backbone entirely (it can be saved for stock). With the backbone out, flip the chicken breast side up and press down firmly on the breastbone with the heel of your hand until you hear and feel it crack and the bird lies flat. That crack is the breastbone giving way, and it is what allows the whole chicken to sit in roughly one even plane rather than curling into its natural rounded shape.
Why Flattening the Bird Changes Cooking Time So Much
A spatchcocked bird has far more surface area exposed to heat, and no part of it is buried deep inside a rounded carcass the way the inner thigh and back are on a whole roasted or grilled chicken. With more surface area and less thickness for heat to penetrate, a spatchcocked chicken cooks substantially faster than a whole one — broadly comparable to roughly 45 minutes in a 425°F oven for a spatchcocked bird, against roughly 90 minutes for the same chicken left whole. On a grill, the more even shape also means the breast and thighs finish closer together in time, rather than the breast drying out while the thighs finish catching up.
The Grill-Specific Method
For the grill specifically, America’s Test Kitchen’s approach uses a two-zone fire and an indirect cooking method rather than direct heat the whole way through:
- Skewer for stability. Two wooden or metal skewers threaded through the bird — one through the breasts, one through the drumstick area — keep the flattened chicken from curling back up as it cooks and make it much easier to flip or move as a single flat piece.
- Cook skin side up, on the cooler side. Place the chicken on the indirect (cooler) side of a two-zone fire, skin side up, with the skewers running roughly parallel to the heat source, then cover the grill.
- Rotate partway through. Rotating the chicken roughly halfway through the total cooking time helps account for any uneven heat distribution across the indirect zone, which is common on both charcoal and gas grills.
- Cook to temperature, not time. Total cooking time on the grill is roughly an hour, but the reliable endpoint is internal temperature: the breast should register 160°F and the thighs 175°F, checked with an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part of each, not away from bone.
Why the Breast and Thigh Targets Differ
Breast meat and thigh meat are different tissue types with different ideal finishing temperatures for texture: white breast meat is best pulled at a lower temperature to stay moist, while thigh meat, which has more connective tissue and fat, benefits from a slightly higher finishing temperature to fully render and tenderise. This is exactly the problem spatchcocking is solving for — on a whole bird, both parts are forced to finish at the same time regardless of what temperature is actually best for each; on a flattened, evenly exposed bird, the two areas get much closer to reaching their own ideal temperatures within the same overall cook.
Practical Notes
Kitchen shears strong enough to cut through the ribs and backbone in one or two clean cuts make this far easier than attempting it with a chef’s knife. The removed backbone is genuinely useful for stock rather than being pure waste. And because a spatchcocked chicken lies flat, it also fits well on a grill alongside other food, which a bulky whole roasting chicken often does not.
Sources
- America’s Test Kitchen. “How to Spatchcock Chicken.” Referenced in: Taste of Home, “How to Spatchcock Chicken.” tasteofhome.com
- America’s Test Kitchen. “Easy Grill-Roasted Butterflied Chicken.” americastestkitchen.com