What to do with chicken hearts and livers

I am butchering 100 chickens right away and will be keeping the hearts and livers. What do I do with this many. Should I just package them in small quantities? Or is there a type of sausage that could be made? Any experience or ideas out there?

I make a liver pate using the hearts and livers, onion, mushrooms, an egg, garlic, and wine vinegar. I like to use 2-3 livers at a time. I can make more and freeze it, but it looses some texture. Sometimes I make more at once and give it to a friend who likes it. Generally though, the small quantity is enough for lunches or snacks for 2-3 days and that works for me.
So in other words, I'd package it in small groups. I'm not sure I could use 100 on my own, and unfortunately, my family rarely eats it.

I package about 4 birds worth together depending on size. I usually use them in a Cajun dirty rice.  About the only way I kind of like liver. Sauté some sausage to render fat. Helps hide some livery taste😀 add minced liver and hearts. Add chopped celery, onion, pepper. After veg soften add cooked rice. Salt and pepper to taste.

I would turn most of the liver into pate and freeze that in small portions, it freezes well. The hearts, no idea I've never actually eaten them, but you could loose freeze them on a baking sheet and then tip into one large bag once frozen so you can take out however many you need at a time.

Skandi, that is a great idea! That could be done for livers and gizzards too. I do that for berries and veg but it never even occurred to me for the chicken organs.

Thank you!

I love pate and dirty rice, use them in dressing/stuffing etc.  But, depending on where you live, you may be able to sell them as catfish bait.  Otherwise, Rumaki! https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/24668/rumaki/

For many years I bought chicken hearts because they were cheap.  

I cooked the hearts, chopped them in a blender, and the hearts became dog food for my two dogs.

Like the others have said, use them to make dirty rice.

I also like making Giblet Gravy.

Marc, what did you do with the gizzards?

If I remember correctly, there was a restaurant that was popular because the restaurant had fried gizzard on the menu.

Thanks for the ideas, I will have to try the dirty rice. As to the gizzards I'm not a fan of them or cleaning them so I have always left them. I should clean some up again to try though.

Marc Dube wrote:Thanks for the ideas, I will have to try the dirty rice. As to the gizzards I'm not a fan of them or cleaning them so I have always left them. I should clean some up again to try though.

What about keeping to feed back to the chickens or other animals?  

Not sure if it'd even be worth it, but just a thought

Anne Miller wrote:

...became dog food for my two dogs.
...

That's what I would do with all the hearts and livers.

I bag up the hearts and gizzards, turkey or chicken and use them in a rice dish I make in the instant pot.

I put a few cups brown rice, salt, pepper, bay leaf and appropriate water. Then I put the frozen 1-1.5 pounds of hearts/gizzards on top. Lightly salt and pepper them.Then add about 4 cups chopped greens on top. I set it for 22 minutes and let cool down at least 10 minutes before releasing pressure. Then mix all together, preferably with a fork to keep rice from getting too gummy.

Pressure cooking them makes them very tender and I’ve never liked gizzards any other way. It’s a favorite meal for my family and worth the work of cleaning the gizzards.

I’m not the biggest fan of liver though and dirty rice sounds like a great way to use them. I remember my mom always cooked all the giblets and then chopped them up and cooked them in the gravy at thanksgiving.

FYI chickens and dogs LOVE leftover liver. (that I should have finished but yuck)

Rob Kaiser wrote: What about keeping to feed back to the chickens or other animals?  

It's generally not recommended to feed animal bits back to the same animal (hence the general human prohibition of eating dead humans except under extreme duress), so yes, using chicken livers to feed fish or dogs is totally a good idea if you have more than you can find humans willing to eat.

What about keeping to feed back to the chickens or other animals?  


That is actually what I am doing with the rest of the offal and carcasses is feeding it to my two pigs. I will be freezing everything in small garbage bags and feeding about a bag a week to the pigs is the plan. But plans do change.

We raw feed our dog.  He gets most of the edible organs (including lungs, spleen, gonads, etc).

I can't believe folks are tossing the gizzards and hearts to the dogs. They're delicious!

When I bake a chicken I always add veggies (potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, celery) and giblets to the bottom of the pan. I add enough chicken broth to cover them and bake everything together. The veggies end up tender and flavorful. The gizzards...well, we kinda like the chewiness? They are good, though! And the hearts are definitely the favorite, we never have any of those left over.

Roll them in some seasoned flour & fry them. That's good eats. Or make giblet gravy.

Hi,  Why not have a dinner for some friends? Dinner and good conversation always makes happy smiles and good will among people.

Haha.  I used to make a chicken liver spaghetti dish for my family.  If you dice them up small enough and disguise them with tomato sauce, no one will know the difference.  It's actually delicious and my kids loved it! Of course, they had no idea what was in it.  lol

Another vote for making pate with the livers. If you want super creamy soft pate with no grittiness, the best recipe that I have found is where the livers are not pre cooked, only the garlic and shallots are sautéed then blended with the raw livers that have had all the veins and chewy bits carefully removed and baked in a ramekin dish sitting in a pan of water aka bain marie. Mustn’t forget a generous splash of brandy.
My mother used to braise gizzards in a dark soya sauce that had cinnamon, star anise, garlic, ginger, Chinese wine and several other spices that I’d need to look up. It would probably work well with the hearts.
Am most envious of your abundance of chicken organs!

My favourite is to chop chicken hearts and livers up and fry them with mushrooms and onions and loads of garlic for a nutrient dense side to any meal.  Freeze a  handful (give or take, depending on your personal preference) of hearts and livers for easy to grab portions for this.   Also using those same portion packs to chop up and add to any sort of ground beef/meat mixture (ie: spaghetti sauce, lasagna filling, hamburgers etc) is a superb way to throw mega needed nutrients in a way you'll hardly notice or taste once the meal is cooked.  Its kind of like those hidden tricks to get kids (or adults) to eat more veg...puree that sweet potato and put it in your pasta sauce.  MMmm and its extra filling too!!  

Otherwise I just throw them to my cats and dog, they love them!  If you have pets and don't mind a bit of effort, slicing the livers and dehydrating them make amazing little treats....  for folks making raw food the taurine content in chicken hearts is vital to add to raw food for cats.

People who make their own raw food are always on the hunt for the livers and hearts if you're not wanting to use them yourself. Usually in half pound lots and frozen works great.  I used to work as a whole animal butcher and we could never keep those things in stock.  Most people loved my suggestions for hiding them in their burgers or lasagnas as they found the taste a little difficult to deal with, but where they felt the difference of including them in their diet, they kept coming back for more.

Laura Overholt wrote:I can't believe folks are tossing the gizzards and hearts to the dogs. They're delicious!

When I bake a chicken I always add veggies (potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, celery) and giblets to the bottom of the pan. I add enough chicken broth to cover them and bake everything together. The veggies end up tender and flavorful. The gizzards...well, we kinda like the chewiness? They are good, though! And the hearts are definitely the favorite, we never have any of those left over.

Same! We always ate those, I personally won't eat any liver though. Vile stuff!

With that many don't know. But I really like to fry them rolled in bacon. In Greece they would add palm tree fruit, but for me it gets too sweet then.

Funny post to me! I grew up meat poor and was thrilled when Mother would fry up a whole Sunday chicken. Flavored with bacon grease, of course. The organ meats always were mine because I was so skinny. I loved chicken heart, liver, and gizzard.

If you are not frying chicken, then I would use livers for pâtés and dirty rice. Freeze the organs in portions for giblet gravy at a later date.

Don’t spurn such tasty treats.

Skewer them and broil over charcoal dipping in a soy sauce glaze.

That's the Japanese way! Yakitori is great

If I have an over abundance of hearts and livers I usually make it into cat food for the 2 loafers in our house.  Cook it up,  whiz it in the food processor. If a really large batch I will can it in 4oz jars.

Laura Overholt wrote:I can't believe folks are tossing the gizzards and hearts to the dogs. They're delicious!

When I bake a chicken I always add veggies (potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, celery) and giblets to the bottom of the pan. I add enough chicken broth to cover them and bake everything together. The veggies end up tender and flavorful. The gizzards...well, we kinda like the chewiness? They are good, though! And the hearts are definitely the favorite, we never have any of those left over.

I like to put giblets with the chicken and vegetables in the roaster, too. Fantastic gravy and if no one else likes overcooked veg and giblets, the dog will!
I have tried cooking them and adding them to the bread dressing; I loved it but the kids didn't.
Another option from the Asian side of the family is to slice the raw, prepped giblets very thinly and sauté them with vegetables as a side dish- delicious!

Chicken Pâté

Ingredients:
Chicken offal 1kg
Onion 1
Carrots 3
Butter 250g
Allspice 3
Bay leaf 3
Salt 10 ml (2 measuring spoons)
Black pepper 2.5ml
Nutmeg 1ml

Procedures:
1. Remove the hard inner membrane from the gizzards and cook with hearts, allspice and bay leaves on low heat at least for 3 hours. The organs have to be completely soft.
2. Add soft parts: livers, testicles, spleen, etc and salt and cook for another 20 minutes.
3. Drain the broth (keep it for the soup stock), remove allspice and leaves.
4. Chop the onion, peel and grate the carrots coarsely. Fry them together in butter till translucent.
5. Grind meats, fried vegetables and remaining spices together using the plate with smallest opening (3mm). Grind at least two times. If too dry then add some broth.


You can use any offal from any animal, just remember to cook hard organs (gizzards, hearts) till really soft. You can add leftover chicken or turkey meat. If you use fattier cuts then you can reduce butter, but the final consistency has to be buttery and spreadable, so do not skimp on fat!
It's considered gourmet food in USA, but in central Europe it's a cheap product available in almost every store, because it is cheap product.

Chicken livers

I finely dice onions, make them golden in a frying pan with some lard. Throw in chicken livers (about 1 1/2 cups), cut up into smaller pieces, and add black pepper. Once seared, I add about 1 1/2 cups (sour) cream* or fresh unpasteurized milk*, a half teaspoon of white sugar. I let it simmer until tender. Add dill and salt to taste. If you like you can add cut up boiled eggs into the whole thing (European thing). Serve with fries, boiled or mashed potatoes or rice.

* your choice