Fatty, rich, and mostly under the skin — which means you can decide how fatty it is.
Duck has a reputation as fatty meat, and it is half deserved. Nearly all the fat
sits in a thick layer between the skin and the muscle rather than through the meat. Remove
the skin and duck breast is closer to lean red meat than to chicken.
That fat is also
more unsaturated than the fat in beef or lamb — largely monounsaturated, the same type
that dominates olive oil. Rendered duck fat is genuinely good for roasting potatoes and is
not the nutritional villain its richness suggests.
Duck is also unusually high in iron
for poultry.
Per 100g cooked, skinless. With skin it is roughly 337 kcal and 28g fat.
Based on the nutrients and fibre this food supplies. These are supporting foods, not treatments.
Score the skin and start in a cold pan. This is the whole technique.
Cross-hatch the fat, put the breast skin-down in an unheated pan, then bring the heat up
slowly. The fat renders out instead of sitting there, and the skin crisps.
Keep the rendered fat. It stores in the fridge for weeks and roasts potatoes
better than anything else.
Duck breast is served pink. Unlike chicken,
duck is safe cooked medium and is much better for it.
Legs want slow
cooking — braised or confit, not grilled.
The fat distribution is what makes duck flexible. Because it is concentrated under
the skin rather than marbled through the muscle, you control the outcome at the pan rather
than at the butcher.
Duck fat is roughly 50% monounsaturated — a considerably
better profile than butter or beef dripping, though still fat and still calorie-dense.
Gout or high uric acid: all meat contains purines, and organ
meats most of all. Meat and seafood purines trigger flares far more reliably than plant
purines do.
Kidney disease: protein load often needs limiting. This
needs your doctor's numbers, not a general rule.
Pregnancy: cook all
meat through — no pink — and avoid liver because of its vitamin A content.
This is information, not a prescription. If you are managing a diagnosed condition or taking medication, talk to your doctor before making a large change to your diet.
Nutrition figures on this page come from standard food composition data. These links let you check the numbers and read the underlying research yourself rather than taking our word for it.