The Popular Baking Tool That Easily Shreds Chicken (And It's Not A Stand Mixer)
One of those oft-repeated pieces of kitchen wisdom that is not one-size-fits-all is that the easiest way to shred chicken is with a stand mixer. (Cooked chicken, that is. For raw chicken, you'd need a food processor, and then this technically wouldn't be shredding but grinding.) While using a stand mixer may be convenient for some, not everyone has the counter space or money for a mixer, especially to shred some chicken for a taco filling or casserole.
What you can do instead is to shred your chicken with a simple kitchen hand tool that can be purchased for under $5 — a whisk. According to this TikTok video, you can shred chicken with a whisk, but it may require a bit of brute effort.
Instead, you'll need to start with warm chicken (it's softer and easier to shred than the cold kind) and, as the TikTok creator advises, "beat the s*** out of it" by using the whisk as a sort of hammer. As they demonstrate their whisk-beating technique, the chicken seems to fall apart pretty easily. We do have one caveat regarding whisk-shredded chicken: The tool that is used in the TikTok video does appear to be a fairly sturdy one, so if you have a lighter whisk, there's a chance that it may not be up to the task of shredding your chunky chicken.
Other kitchen tools can be used, but the whisk is a winner
Yes, there are numerous other kitchen tools that can be used to shred chicken. In addition to a stand mixer, you can also use a food processor or even a blender to shred chicken, but as these appliances are both electrical, you'll be out of luck should you ever need to throw together a chicken salad during a power outage. You can also go low-tech by using two forks, either stabbing the chicken with one and shredding it with the other or else just scratching away with both. Still, as two utensils are needed, so are two hands, whereas chicken whisking can be done one-handed. Having a hand free, in turn, allows you to film the whole process to make your own TikTok video.
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The simplest, most basic chicken-shredding tools of all can be found at the ends of your arms. While it's perfectly fine to hand-shred your chicken, as long as you remember to wash up first, not everyone likes to get that handsy with their ingredients, plus if the chicken is fresh out of the oven, it might be too hot to touch. With a whisk, that's no problem at all, and anyone wandering into the kitchen as you cook won't be put off by the sight of your meat-groping technique.