Chook Me!

If buffalo style chicken wings are made from tiny chicken wings, what do they use the other tiny parts for?

It is my understanding that the idea for buffalo style chicken wings came about as a way to use up these otherwise useless, little wings. Well, what do they do with the tiny breasts for example? It wouldn't make economic sense to raise tiny chickens. I don't get it.

Public Comments

1. Chicken nuggets, chicken tenders, pre-cooked chicken strips that you find in stores. Things like that. Some species of chicken are just smaller than others. It's not that they intentionally keep the chickens tiny (how would they do that anyway??).
2. chicken wings are from a fully grown chicken if I understood your question right , therefore there is no waste the other parts are used to make other dishes , from soup o stews versus Cornish hens those are served either whole bird or cut it half, Quails are served whole .
3. Chicken wings are from regular chickens!...lol I thought the same as you for years, but actually what they do is take the wing apart. If you go and buy a bucket of chicken the wing that is in there is the same thing as what buffalo wings are made from. The small part is taken off and discarded and then there are 2 parts left that are separated to make 2 little wings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_wings
4. No, it's just that wings were the cheapest part of the chicken, until the wing craze changed everything. The ideal avg weight for sectioned wings is about 12 wings to a pound. Bigger than that and they take too long to cook and smaller than that and there isn't enough meat. Wings use to sell for less than half the price per pound for a whole chicken and not they sell for the same price as boneless skinless chicken breasts. The cheapest cut on a chicken now is the thigh. About eight billion wings are eaten every year in the US with four wing pieces per chicken. Breast meat is often processed into 1oz portions for chicken fingers and the trimmings are chopped and formed into chicken nuggets. Drumsticks are popular with kids which leaved the thighs as the cheapest cut of meat. I myself like the thighs.