Chicken breast and chicken tenderloin are often used interchangeably in recipes, but there are some notable differences. To get a complete picture of the difference betweenchicken breastand tenderloin, we cover the following:
- What they are - definition
- Where they are - location
- How big are they - size
- How they taste - taste
- What they look like - appearance
- What they cost - price
- How healthy they are - nutrition
- How to prepare them - cooking
Table of contents
Definition
What is a chicken fillet?
If you butcher a whole chicken, you will see two whole breasts on your chicken, one on each side of the breastbone with a wing on the back of each chicken and the thighs and legs underneath. It is a large, plump muscle with white flesh and the technical name for it is pectoralis major.
What is a chicken tenderloin?
It can be difficult to identify a chicken's tenderloin because it is not one of the outwardly visible parts. This is partly because the tenderloin is actually part of the whole chicken fillet when it comes off the bird. So each chicken has two breasts and two tenderloins.
The sirloin steak is the brisket, and it is also white meat, but as the name suggests, it is more tender than the brisket, and also smaller.
Place
Where's the chicken breast?
If you ever buy whole breasts at the grocery store or remove them yourself while deboning a chicken at home, you will find that a breast usually consists of a large, typically plump piece of meat located on the underside of the bird. Each whole breast has two halves, left and right, and these are usually sold separately because they are naturally split on either side of the breastbone.
Where's the chicken tenderloin?
The chicken breast has smaller muscles underneath that lie against the breastbone. The two muscles are loosely connected by a tendon that can easily be cut or even pulled apart. This is the tenderloin.
Maat
How big is a chicken fillet?
As the technical names of pectoralis major and pectoralis minor indicate, the breast of a chicken is larger than the tenderloin. On average, a boneless, skinless grocery store chicken breast can range from a paltry 3 ounces to a whopping 8 ounces. Some can grow to 10 ounces and larger, but this is unusual.
Cooking chicken breasts will reduce their size by about 25% when done. That means an 8-ounce chicken breast will lose 2 ounces when you cook and will be 6 ounces when you're done.
How big is a chicken tenderloin?
In general, the chicken tenderloin will only be about a quarter the size of the breast it was attached to. This will vary from chicken to chicken, but you will rarely see a tenderloin that is more than a third the size of the accompanying breast.
As with breast meat, cooking chicken tenders will reduce the size by about 25%.
Taste
What is the taste of chicken fillet?
Chicken breast is considered a very versatile meat, precisely because of the taste and texture it gives to a dish. It is easily able to pick up flavors without bringing its own strong flavor into the mix, so it works well in many types of dishes and with many flavor and spice profiles. Unless something like lamb, which is very fatty and strong, or even the more flavorful cuts of chicken like thighs, brisket is easily adaptable and prepared in numerous ways.
The actual taste of unseasoned chicken breast is mild. The lack of fat makes it bland for some people, but there is an umami aspect to it with a very slight salty note. For this reason, chicken breast relies mainly on its texture mixed with added spices to complete a dish and make it memorable.
What does chicken tenderloin taste like?
Chicken tenderloin tastes almost exactly the same as chicken breast, but perhaps not as bland as a whole. Because a tenderloin has a higher sodium and fat content than a brisket, and because it is generally thinner, the flavor is more pronounced. Combined with the greater tenderness, many prefer the flavor of the tenderloin when given the choice.
Appearance
What does chicken fillet look like?
The breasts are usually full, smooth and rounded on one side and taper to a smaller point, almost like a teardrop, on the other side. They can also sometimes be cut into chicken breasts, changing the shape and potential texture. The color of fresh, raw chicken breast should be pink. If fat is visible, it is white to light yellow in color.
Cooked chicken breast will be very pale and white. When cooked properly, there should be no hint of pink at all. Chicken is very likely to absorb colors from sauces and flavorings prepared with it, so this can change its final appearance depending on how it is prepared. Likewise, hard searing will cause a Maillard reaction that turns the outside of the chicken from golden brown to black, depending on the heat and length of time the chicken was seared.
Chicken breast has a very malleable texture that can change significantly based on cooking methods. While ground chicken breast can mimic beef quite well, slow-cooked chicken breast can be shredded and resemble pulled pork, while a grilled breast can be meaty and juicy, and fried chicken can be very tender.
Dry cooking methods such as grilling and baking can sometimes produce a very dry, almost woody texture of chicken breast, especially in thicker portions. Poorly cooked brisket can even look floury.
What does chicken tenderloin look like?
Tenderloin will be flatter and narrower than a brisket and less smooth across the surface. Like the breast, the raw meat should be pink. There is generally no fat on a chicken tenderloin.
When cooked, chicken tenderloin is almost identical to chicken breast.
If the chicken has a white, yellow or gray tint, this is probably not good.
A note about tenderloin, tenderloin and strips
Be careful when buying in stores as you may see something being sold asChicken offerwhich is not actually a tenderloin. Sometimes chicken fillets are slaughtered in smaller portions and sold as tenders.
Beef tenderloin, tenderloin, and chicken strips are all sometimes used interchangeably to represent thin pieces of chicken that have been breaded or unbreaded. Tenderloin should only refer to this specific piece of chicken and should not be used as a general term. But be careful if you see strips or tenderloin, because while they can be made from tenderloin and you can easily turn the tenderloin into strips or tenderloin, they can literally be made from any cut of meat.
Taken
How much does chicken breast cost?
In 2021,average price per poundfor chicken breast in America was $2.70. On the other hand, the average price iswhole chickenwas just over $1.50 per pound, so it may make more sense to buy a whole chicken and butcher it yourself.
How much does a chicken tender cost?
The price per One pound of chicken tenderloin cost approximately $3.72 in the United States in 2021. Ironically, these were the "regular" price packs, while the tenderloin value packs cost an average of $3.99.
Power supply
What is the nutritional value of chicken fillet?
Chicken breast has long been valued as a source of lean, lean protein.
According toUSDA, for the 100 g or 3.5 oz portion of chicken breast you get (remember these are for skinless braised meat only and your cooking method may change the nutritional value):
- 166 calories
- 31 grams of protein
- 3.24 grams vet
- 47 mg natrium
- 116 mg cholesterol
What is the nutritional value of chicken tenders?
You will find almost the same thing in an unseasoned chicken tenderloinNutritional valuebut not quite the same. Notable differences from a tenderloin include:
- 107 calories
- 22.3 grams of protein
- 1.34 grams vet
- 80 mg natrium
- 58 mg cholesterol
You'll find that the chicken tenderloin has significantly more sodium, but overall less protein and calories. Chicken breast is generally more nutritious than chicken breast. Aside from these nutrients, chicken breast has slightly higher concentrations of some vitamins such as B6 and other nutrients.
A note about nutritional values online
One thing worth mentioning is that between these two cuts, you will find a lot of unreliable information online regarding nutritional information. Some websites have a nutritional comparison without sources that completely misrepresents the nutrients in tenderloin, almost tripling the calories, not to mention the fat and sodium, which sometimes contain more than six times the normal amount. It is unclear where this information came from, but it may have been originally obtained from an extensive source. Many pork tenderloins are sold pre-seasoned and processed with salt and chicken stock, which may explain the higher fat and extremely high sodium content that some websites have attributed to chicken tenders.
In any case, 100 grams of pure, unseasoned tenderloin should never contain more than 500 mg of sodium.
To cook
How can you prepare and cook chicken fillet?
Chicken fillet is ideal for:
- Frying
- Pan frying/pipe frying
- Braisering
- Bakken
- The grill
- Poacher
- Roasting
Marinating chicken breast can help improve the dry or mealy texture it can sometimes get when cooked incorrectly. Most marinades work very well with chicken, but you don't want to leave the chicken in a very acidic marinade for too long. Chicken breast is best marinated for only 5 to 6 hours.
Good marinades for chicken can be anything from buttermilk (especially if you're making fried chicken), yogurt, barbecue sauce, or a simple mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, and your favorite spices like garlic, pepper, etc.
Non-oil cooking methods such as grilling, steaming and baking can help keep unwanted fat to a minimum, although there will obviously be some sacrifice in flavor.
The best way to prepare chicken breast largely depends on the size of the breast. You can cook chicken breast on the skin and bone for a juicy and flavorful end result, but if it is skinless and boneless, the same method can also produce dry chicken, so you have to be flexible. If the same breast was cut into strips, they could dry out completely.
Regardless of how it is prepared, all chicken meat must achieve oneinternal temperatureof at least 165 degrees F before eating to ensure bacteria are killed and the chicken is safe for human consumption. There is no difference between chicken tenderloin and breast in this regard.
How can you prepare and cook chicken tenderloin?
Chicken tenderloin, a smaller and more delicate cut, is best when prepared in the following ways:
- Roasting
- Breaded/seasoned and fried
- Grilled
- Steamed
- Poached
- En papillote (i pergamentpapir)
Beef tenderloin takes less time to marinate than brisket, both because it is already more tender and because it is smaller. For quick preparation, you can marinate a tenderloin in just one hour.
Tenderloins cook faster and require more gentle handling to keep them intact. Over-marinated pork tenderloins can literally fall apart. Likewise, tenderloin that is not properly handled can tear from sticking to the grill or overcooking, and become tough if not closely monitored. It can also be easy to overseason the tenderloin and drown out the natural chicken flavor.
Chicken tenders only take a few minutes to cook on each side when fried or grilled. The low fat content makes the meat more likely to stick to the cooking surface. Grills and pans should therefore be fully preheated and/or oiled before cooking to prevent sticking.
Chicken tenderloin is often used for chicken fingers and other snacks.
Because there is less meat in a tenderloin, it cannot retain other flavors as well as breast meat.
Skinless vs. skin-on
Cooking breast meat with the skin on can make the finished product juicier and potentially more tender than skinless chicken breast. If the chicken is fried, baked or grilled, you can also get a crispy skin.
Chicken breast is sold without the skin to look healthy, but this is not necessarily the case. Chicken breast skin contains fat, but it is also unsaturated fat, which is much healthier for you. Chicken breast skin contains approximately 3 grams of saturated fat and 8 grams of unsaturated fat. Although saturated fat is the bad fat, you should limit your intake to about 12 to 13 grams per day so that chicken breast skin can easily be converted into a diet that meets these numbers.
Skinless chicken contains 231 calories per serving. cup, but with the skin is 276 calories. If you eat a whole chicken breast instead of a cup, this will obviously vary depending on the size of the chicken, but you should only add about 100 calories
Of course, if you don't like skin, a tenderloin would be a good option because, like the inner muscle, there is never any skin on it in the first place.
In short
Chicken breast is a large muscle on the underside of the chicken, while tenderloin is a smaller muscle located between the breast and the sternum itself. The tenderloin is smaller and more tender and has a slightly higher fat and sodium content.
Chicken breast can tolerate more flavor than tenderloin because the muscle is larger and can absorb more. At the same time, there is a risk that the taste will be poor if it is not seasoned properly, and it can also suffer from dehydration. Beef tenderloin is a little easier to overcook.
Both chicken breast and tenderloin can be expensive, but tenderloin is more expensive. Buying whole chickens and slaughtering them yourself is often a better option.
