How To Prepare Chicken Hearts
In this super quick and easy tutorial I show you how to prepare chicken hearts for cooking. I also give you lots of tips and ideas for how to add the prepared chicken hearts to recipes.
Why I love to cook with chicken hearts
Chicken hearts are one of my favourite organ meats. They taste just like ‘normal’ meat, they are quick to prepare and cook, and in most parts of the world they are super cheap. When we butcher chickens, I pack all the hearts in one freezer bag and all the livers in another and freeze flat for future recipes. Of course, you can cook hearts and livers in one dish too – they have very similar cooking time if you slice the livers into smaller strips first. You need quite a lot of hearts to make a meal for a family – that’s why I often freeze them until I have enough.
I also need to mention that even though I am talking about chicken hearts here, the same process applies to any poultry hearts. And rabbit hearts too – we once kept meat rabbits and their hearts looked (and cooked) exactly like chicken hearts.
Preparing hearts
If you look at the picture above, you can see that at the top of each heart there are pieces of the arteries still attached as well as some fat. There may also be some congealed blood. Each heart also has a very thin, transparent membrane covering it, making it slide in your fingers when you try to hold it. Therefore…
The main job in preparing hearts is to remove the thin outer membrane and slice off the just the tip of each heart which removes the arteries and other bits of tissue. Is it strictly necessary? No, but it makes the heart look neat and presentable, that’s why I do it. Some people are also squeamish about eating those bits.
Now I usually cut the heart in half. There may be some congealed blood inside. Remove it if you wish. I usually pan fry the hearts and if they are halved first, they cook faster. If you plan to cook them longer e.g. in a stew, this step is not necessary. Or if you plan to make heart kebabs, leave them whole.
Whole hearts on the left, halved prepared hearts on the right. As you can see, I forgot to remove the membrane from one of the whole hearts on the bottom left. That’s why it’s slightly lighter in color than the rest.
How to cook with chicken hearts
Now that you have prepared your chicken hearts, here are my tips on how to cook them. Firstly, they are versatile – they do not require long cooking in liquid to become tender like gizzards do. So you can basically cook them any way you like, except perhaps not long stewing which would overcook them. They can be very quickly pan fried. You can add them to broths and soups. Ot they can be marinated and barbecued on skewers.
Even when they are raw, they are not tough so you could also easily mince them or chop them very finely and add to ground meat for a nutrient boost. Because they have a mild flavor you don’t need to worry that they will alter the taste of your meatloaf or bolognese. With ground chicken livers, you need to be more sparing if you don’t want your family to notice that you’ve added them to the meatloaf. With hearts, you can be more liberal.
For a quick dinner, I usually pan fry hearts (halved) with sliced chicken livers. You could add whatever seasonings you like. I serve this with fried onions (liver ALWAYS tastes better with onions) and plain boiled rice. You could also add a little stock and a dash of cream at the end of cooking to make a delicious gravy to pour over the rice. Or serve with crusty sourdough bread to mop up the gravy.
My top 10 ways to cook chicken hearts
- Chinese stir fry with hearts, cauliflower florets and sliced cabbage
- Hearts on skewers with barbecue sauce
- Chicken curry with hearts, potatoes and peas
- Minced hearts added to ground beef for burgers or lasagne (I would start with 10% ground hearts and 90% beef)
- Chinese noodle soup with hearts, onions and sliced carrots
- Pan fried hearts with fried eggs for breakfast
- Breakfast casserole with halved hearts, cubed bread and hash browns
- Scottish barley soup with onions, carrots and hearts
- Indian fried rice with chopped hearts, green beans and peas
- Chopped hearts, mushroom and onion omelet
I think the biggest issue people have with hearts is that they look like…hearts. Once you get over that, the taste is not unusual or weird. I personally think that they taste a bit like steak. Give them a try!
How To Prepare Chicken Hearts
Equipment
- sharp paring knife
Ingredients
- 1 kg chicken hearts
Instructions
- Remove the thin, slippery membrane covering the heart. I usually pierce a hole in it with the point of my knife, pull it off, and once it comes off, I use the knife to slice it off at the point where it is attached to the heart (which is near the top of the heart).
- Cut off just the tip of the heart to remove the arteries.
- Cut the heart in half and remove any large blood clots. (This step is optional – they can be also cooked whole.)
- Voila! The heart is ready for cooking. Repeat the above steps with the rest of the hearts.
Notes
- Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium high heat.
- Add the prepared hearts (whole or halved), season with salt and freshly ground pepper and saute over medium high heat for a few minutes until cooked through. Stir a couple of times to ensure even cooking.
- Serve hot with some crusty sourdough bread.
- mince the hearts and add to ground beef
- add to soups and broths
- stir fry with some vegetables
- serve cooked hearts in warm salads
- add chopped cooked hearts to sandwich fillings
- use as part of stuffing for roast chicken
- add to rice and use to stuff peppers or courgettes
