Heart health is an important factor to consider when preparing food, and chicken is a protein your heart will love. Most people love chicken and you can prepare some awesome meals with succulent chicken breasts.
There are all sorts of things you can do with the breasts to provide you with wholesome and delicious meals. Everybody has their favorite part of a chicken, but when you’re trying to watch your weight, chicken breasts are a sought-after part.
This is because they are delicious while being low in fat, and they are so easy to prepare. Breasts are easy to chop and slice with a nice, sharp chef’s fillet knife.
So many chicken breast queries to answer
Many chicken recipes, such as chicken pie, stir fries or chicken casserole, call for cubed chicken pieces. What if the recipe calls for 2 cups of chicken breast? What exactly does that mean?
There is no dead-certain, 100% accurate response, as there are so many ‘what ifs’ when answering the question. What if the chicken is small? What if it’s big, and what size cup are you talking about?
A lot depends on the recipe, too, and whether you measure the chicken raw or cooked. When preparing chicken dishes, should you use a food scale or cups? Also, a lot will depend on how finely you chop the chicken breasts.
A medium-sized raw chicken breast is going to weigh roughly 8 ounces. A cup of cooked chicken can weigh roughly 2 ounces to 5 ounces, so there is already uncertainly as to how many ounces of chicken breast will fill a cup or two.
When you examine recipes, you usually find them referring to cooked chicken measured by volume. Chicken breast sizes vary quite a bit, and everyone has their own way of advising how many chicken breasts will equal 2 cups.
You can more or less expect to get a little more than 2 cups of cooked chicken from a pound or 16 ounces of raw chicken. Some people don’t like pondering on issues like this for too long, saying that for them there’s an easier way.
They say that one cup of cooked cubed chicken breast will come from one medium sized chicken breast. Two cups of cooked cubed chicken breast will therefore come from two medium sized chicken breasts. They say it’s so easy to work it out this simple way.
Cook your chicken breasts, dice them up, and fill two cups. If the cups aren’t altogether full, simply dice up the third chicken breast and use what is necessary to fill the cups up. What could be easier?
Unless you are a fanatic who estimates every calorie in a recipe, having a little too much or too little chicken isn’t going to alter your recipe too much, so it’s not worth stressing about.
Some estimates for fitting chicken breasts into 2 cups
The scale measures the weight of food, while a cup measures its volume, or how much space it takes up. The answer can never be 100% accurate, but it can still be a good estimate. Let’s just take a look at some ideas of how many chicken breasts equal 2, 3, or 4 cups –
- A third of a pound of raw, boneless, and skinless chicken will be equal to a cup of cubed or diced chicken.
- Fried chicken that weighs about 140g or 4.94 ounces will fit into a cup. The weight will depend on factors such as how large the chicken pieces are, and how tightly packed the chicken pieces are in the cup.
- In general, 3 pounds of cooked, diced chicken breasts will fill 4 1/2 cups.
- 1 ½ pounds of cooked, cubed chicken breasts will give you 2 cups chicken.
- 2 cups cubed chicken equals approximately 10 ½ ounces of cooked, boneless chicken.
None of these measurements in ounces or pounds are set in stone and looked upon as 100 % precise, but they can help you make a fair estimate.
How Many Chicken Breasts Equal 2 Cups
2 standard cups equals 10 to 15 cubes of chicken breast
Some home chefs just want simplicity in the kitchen. They can’t stand measuring and weighing and prefer to repeat the same steps every time they make a familiar dish.
Their answer to ‘How many chicken breasts equal 2 cups’ is simple. It requires taking a standard cup and placing 10 to 15 medium cut cubes of chicken breast in it.
Buying chicken breasts
The simplest way to obtain the best chicken breasts is to purchase boneless cuts at your local supermarket. This means they have already been cut from the chest of the bird and are lean, tender, and succulent.
Without the bone, they may be a bit dry if you eat them whole, but marinating whole breasts or cubes can make the pieces juicy and tender. Chicken tends to be a bit slippery to slice. Hold the chicken breast and cut the breast into thickish slices.
Then stack a few slices at a time and cut them up into cubes. The chicken is ready to cook in any number of recipes, such as the ones mentioned above. When you’re following a chicken recipe, it can be a wise move to know how many breasts to prepare if the recipe calls for a pound of chicken.
Chicken breasts typically weigh between 3 and 8 ounces, so a pound of meat could require anywhere from 2 to 5 breasts. Those who prefer to keep things simple should use four chicken breasts per pound. Remember that all cooked meat weighs less than it does in its raw state.
The best chicken recipes make allowances for deviations
Of course, for the best results in cooking, it is best to stick with the correct quantities. Accurate measurements are important for good cooking, as they do ensure success with a recipe. However, the best chicken recipes all make allowances for some deviations.
To be successful in your kitchen, follow your instincts Don’t get hung up on a precise answer to the question of how many chicken breasts equal 2 cups. For some, the answer is 2 and for others, it’s 3. Simply experiment with amounts to get your own chicken recipe to work perfectly for you.