I'm someone who prefers thighs to any other chicken parts. Lately a number of people have mentioned high fat content. I don't see a lot. Is it there but not visible? Is the de-fatting process something other than skinning and trimming off bits of yellow fat?

Jim

Well, there's no getting around it unfortunately. Skinless chicken thighs contains almost twice the fat as skinless breast meat. That said, I used skinless thighs last night for chicken enchiladas. I roasted 8 thighs & it only took 3-4 minutes to remove the skin & bones. I give them about 10 minutes to cool off & use my hands to remove the meat from the bones...very fast & efficient. (wash hands well!)

If you are watching cholesterol content you're better off to stick with boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Truthfully, I would much prefer the dark meat and I use that instead.

3 oz. of boneless skinless chicken breast has about 1.5 grams of fat, the same amount of thigh meat has about 4 grams of fat. Yes, that's over twice as much, but the grams themselves are pretty negligable when factored in as part of your total diet. The real trick is to get rid of the skin, no matter what chicken part you are consuming and sticking to low fat cooking methods.

for instance, leave the skin on that chicken breast and your fat grams go up to 7 grams, whereas that skinless thigh will still have 4 grams. Leave the skin on the thigh and you'll get 9 or 10 grams.

The cholesterol level itself is pretty close, 105 mg. for dark meat, 97 mg. for breast.

No matter whether you choose thighs or breasts, if it's skinless it's probably still lower in fat than beef, pork or lamb, unless you have the ultra lean grass fed stuff.

Annie

What Tricia said, but maybe 50% more not twice? Purdue's boneless/skinless thighs have 110mg chol per 4oz serving versus 75mg in b/s breast. But the DV percentages are 37 and 25 respectively, so I don't think you need to ban it just work it with the rest of your meals?

I have posted before about how we brought our cholesterol numbers in line through diet and we're still on target about 10 years later.

I view it as it's better to eat a skinless chicken thigh than a steak or pizza.

I recently tried a new recipe for them that we liked.
CHICKEN THIGHS WITH LEEKS & SHITAKES (2 servings  330 calories each)

2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of fat
1 Tbs. flour
3 tsp. olive oil, divided
1 large leek, white and light green parts only, trimmed and sliced
4 oz. shitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/8 tsp. salt
Sprinkle of ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp. minced fresh tarragon or 1/2 tsp. dried

Place chicken on a plate and sprinkle all over with flour. Reserve the excess flour.

Heat 2 tsp. oil in nonstick skillet over med-high heat. Add the chicken and cook, turning once, until browned on both sides, 4 to 6 minutes total. Transfer to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.

Add the remaining 1 tsp. of oil, leek and mushrooms to the pan. Cook over med-high heat, stirring often, until the vegetables are tender.

Sprinkle the reserved flour over the vegetables and stir to coat. Add broth, wine, coriander and salt and bring to a simmer. Return the chicken to the pan and simmer, turning the chicken occasionally, until it is cooked through, about 4 to 6 minutes. Stir in tarragon and add salt and pepper to taste, if needed.

I'm one that has a "phobia" about any kind of fat or gristle or anything like that when it comes to meat. If I get the tiniest bit while I'm chewing, that's pretty much it for the meal - it turns my stomach and I can't eat anymore of it. The rest of the family is practically done and I'm still surgically removing any and all traces from my meat!! That being said, while I prefer the taste of dark meat I avoid chicken legs and thighs because of the tendons, fat, gristle, etc. But I've found that when I slow cook them, 90% of the fat and other stuff seems to just disappear and I can eat them fine. Granted, you're going to have a layer of fat to deal with that will need to be skimmed off, but that's pretty easy to do. I, also, always remove the skin, even from chicken legs. So I usually use boneless thighs in casserole type dishes that bake for a long time. I have to admit the meat does get a little dry - dry for dark meat anyway, but the flavor is still good.

My good number is pretty high so the doctor told me it's nothing to worry about even tho my overall cholesterol is high. I guess that good number being high negates some of the bad. But I still try to watch it because I don't need to take medication and I want to keep it that way. High cholesterol does run in my family. And after eating low fat for so many years, I find that fatty foods make me stomach sick. I can't tolerate the fat. Which is unfortunate because I just love dipping good bread in tasty dipping oil, but more than one piece and I'm a goner!!

Lisa

In his book 'The River Cottage Meat Book', Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (great name, eh?) makes a distinction between fat on the outside of a piece of meat and fat within the meat. The former does a good job of basting the meat during cooking, and if you're concerned about fat intake, just don't eat it; but don't cut it off prior to cooking.

It would be interested to see a scientific nutritional study of, say, chicken thighs cooked with the skin on and then the skin discarded prior to serving, compared with thighs cooked without the skin.

Thanks for all comments and recipes. An interesting subject since the fat is not good for anyone whether high cholesterol or not. I plan to research the exact fat content, and will advise.

Jim, we eat only boned and skinned thighs. If you approach one that has been boned and skinned, you will see all the fat layered in there. It takes me about ten minutes per thigh to get the fat cleaned out, but we have a favorite recipe for Chicken Luau, so I will continue spending the time, I guess.

Checking the latest issue of "Nutrition Action Health Letter" I find that a 4oz skinned chicken thigh has 236 calories, 3g of satfat and 12g of total fat. A chicken thigh with skin has 279 calories, 5g of satfat and 18g of total fat. Guess I'll continue to purchase the skinned/boned thighs, and cut out the fat.

Re: cholesterol.I've had it for years and even with medication it was still a bit over range. Last Dec. for the 1st time everything was within range (triglycirides too)or better. What did I do? My brother not my doctor suggested that I take Omega fish oil tablets. I'm not recommending it, just saying what worked for me and I eat lots of skinless chicken thighs. lol

I like to take them and brown in evoo seasoned w/ S&P on both sides then remove chicken and leave only 2 tablspoon oil add 10 cloves sliced garlic 2tsp thyme saute add 1/2 cup chicken stock and 1/2 cup sherry return chicken to pot and cover for 20 minutes

Ruthanna, I missed your previous posting of how you reduced yours. If you check back in to this post, will you let us know. I'd love to compare notes.

Mine I brought down with eating mostly green vegetables, with some carrots and potatoes thrown in in small quantities, and using more olive oil to cook with, less butter. This was done for about 4 weeks. Dropped the cholesterol like a rock!

Beth

One of my favorite ways to use boneless skinless thighs is to cut them up in bite-sized pieces, marinate them overnight, then thread them on bamboo skewers for souvlaki or satay. A couple of Greek marinated skewers over a Greek salad with some tzatziki sauce makes a light, healthy summer meal.

Beth, we basically reduced our intake of saturated fats. Keeping cholesterol in mind when shopping or making a meal did make a difference. Cheese, butter and red meat were our three biggest culprits (plus cream for me and ice cream for DH) and we scaled back but didn't eliminate their use.

Like you, we added more vegetables to our meals, baked instead of fried, ate more beans and grains, broke the habit of takeout pizza when I didn't feel like cooking, shared a big steak instead of having one per person, ate a meatless meal at least once a week, selected lower fat alternatives when dining out, and other relatively painless common sense ways of getting our numbers into line.

It was a slow process and took more than a year to get where we wanted to be but as we see and hear more reports and know people who have had negative side effects with long-term use of cholesterol drugs, I feel it was worth the effort.

Thanks Ruthanna. I'm a real believer in just keeping a watch on it like this rather than drastic cuts.

When mine spiked on just this one occassion, the doctor wanted to put me on drugs too and I refused. When six months later it was back down below normal, he didn't even acknowledge it. Made me very suspicious of those reports of doctors getting kick backs from the pharm co's.

My weakness was/is butter and cheese dip.. Just gotta love 'em.