Chicken Thighs Are Good Too
Chicken breasts are the classic “healthy” meat, but if you want to make a cheap and healthy meal, don’t sleep on chicken thighs. This is one of the most affordable meat dishes in the supermarket, especially if you buy it with bones , and it’s almost impossible to cook . If you are one of those who buy only breasts, let me try to convince you.
So why not eat chicken thighs the next time you’re cooking a healthy meal? I can hear you all screaming at me in unison: ” Because thighs have more fat and more calories .” This is true, but only a little.
The difference is really overrated. A boneless, skinless chicken breast contains 142 calories, 3 grams of fat, and 27 grams of protein. A boneless, skinless chicken thigh has 206 calories, 10 grams of fat, and a very similar 28 grams of protein. The difference is only 64 calories. Keep the skin on that thigh and you get a total of 239 calories (including one more gram of fat and another four grams of protein, by the way). That’s less than 100 calories difference between a savory skin-on delight and dry chicken breast.
You can easily make room in your diet for those extra 100 calories. In fact, when your main dish tastes better, you don’t need to add things like sauces for extra flavor.
What’s more, you don’t have to literally starve yourself to be healthy . It’s okay to give your body enough calories to live. Eat chicken thighs if you like them, and add vegetables, whole grains, and other healthy, tasty foods to your meal.
From chicken thighs you can cook a gourmet dish for dinner . You can marinate them in yogurt and garlic salt . You can even make a small batch in the Instant Pot and learn the secret to browning from all angles . I dare say you’d enjoy cooking and eating chicken if you had thighs more often. Try it.