Best Duck Breast Recipe Ever

A perfectly cooked, pan-fried duck breast will have a crisp, golden skin and succulent pink flesh. Read our guide on how to properly prepare and cook this meat.

Whether you are cooking duck breasts as a quick meal for two or serving them as part of a Chinese-inspired feast, our guide shows you the perfect technique for pan-frying them. Also see our most popular ideas for how to serve this versatile cut of meat.

Duck has a thicker skin, higher fat content and a stronger, meatier flavour than chicken. The breasts are covered in a thick layer of fat, which needs to be melted (rendered) during cooking to ensure the skin crisps up. The most efficient way to melt the fat is to score dry duck breasts through to the fat layer, then cook skin-side down in a frying pan.

Pan Seared Duck Breast With Orange Pan Sauce Recipe

Once the fat has melted, you can finish cooking the duck breast in the oven, if you like, or add it to dishes such as our Thai curry or wok-fried duck & oyster sauce (below). Don’t be tempted to roast or grill duck breast from raw, as you're likely to overcook the meat before the fat has melted. You could also fry duck breasts until browned, then cook them slowly in liquid, as in our pappardelle recipe (below).

Read our guide on the best way to cook duck breasts, then check out our duck breast recipes for more ideas and also read our general guide on how to cook duck. We have plenty more inspiration for other parts of the bird, including duck leg recipes and whole duck recipes.

For a less fatty outcome, you can remove the skin and fat before cooking. However, you'll need to make sure the meat doesn’t dry out. Opening the breast out and bashing it with a meat mallet or rolling pin, as in this barbecue recipe, will help. Skinless duck breasts can also be cooked on a griddle pan or on skewers, as in this duck satay canapé recipe.

Peking Duck Breast Recipe

How long a duck breast takes to cook will depend on how well you want it cooked and how you choose to cook it. If simply pan-frying as described above then a duck breast will roughly take 15-20 mins to be cooked until still rosy in the middle or 25-30 mins until cooked all the way through.

A duck breast can be roasted but for the best results you should render and crisp the thick layer of fat over a medium heat first. If you do this in a pan that’s also ovenproof the duck breast can simply be flipped onto its flesh side and then roasted at 180C/160 fan/gas 4 for 5-12mins depending on how well you want it cooked.

Heat the air fryer 180C. Season the duck breast with salt and pepper and place in the air fryer basket skin-side up. Cook for 5-6 mins until the skin is crisp and golden then flip the breast and continue to cook for another 8-10 mins for medium-rare (rosy in the middle), or longer if you want it cooked more. Let the duck rest for a 5 mins before slicing it to serve.

Crispy Chinese Duck Breast

Whip up this speedy duck stir-fry in just 15 minutes. It's low in fat and calories but hoisin sauce provides plenty of flavour.This duck breast recipe comes together so quickly, looks so beautiful, and is so tasty: perfectly crisp skin and flesh medium-rare. The sauce is restaurant caliber. Date night at home? Open a bottle of wine and start cooking!

Several weeks ago, I had dinner at Otway in Brooklyn. Chef Claire Welle prepared a fall meal in collaboration with Le Creuset and Cherry Bombe in anticipation of the now-released Le Creuset Cookbook andtableware collection. Of the many memorable dishes Claire cooked for the event, several came from the

As I swiped each piece of duck through the ruby red sauce pooling on the plate, I remember thinking: Only in a restaurant is duck ever

Gordon Ramsay's Duck Breast Recipe: Pan Fried Duck Breast

On the contrary, the recipe looked simple, the sauce requiring three ingredients, the duck an oven-proof skillet. I was intrigued by the technique, too:

“Instead of slapping the duck into a screaming hot skillet, scored breasts are placed skin-side down in a cold pan, slowly brought up to temperature, and left undisturbed until they render copious amounts of delicious fat and the skin turns deep brown and crisp.”

I’ve now made the dish complete with fancy sauce and thyme-roasted grapes several times, and every time I am surprised by how quickly it comes together, how impressive it looks, and how tasty it is. I’ve never cooked better duck at home, with skin beautifully crisp, flesh medium rare, the sauce restaurant caliber. What’s more? It turns out the secret to perfectly cooked duck at home is also the key to not smoking out your house. Win win.

How To Cook Duck Breasts

If you’ve made a caramel sauce — and even if you haven’t — you can make a gastrique. Here’s the basic process:

As the sauce simmers, it reduces into an irresistibly sweet-sharp syrup, tasting like an expensive aged vinegar. In the end, you will feel you have a pot of gold on your hands, a sauce to make anything better.

With the sauce done, there is nothing tricky about the dish. When the breasts are finished cooking, they, like all meat, must rest, at which point you throw ahandful of grapes and a few sprigs of thyme into the now-empty pan and then toss the pan into the oven. Genius! Just the distraction you need to keep you from slicing the duck prematurely.

Duck Breasts With Orange Sauce (best Sauce For Duck!)

Duck is rich, like steak, so I’ve been serving the breasts with a simple green salad dressed with ashallot vinaigrette and bread, of course. This meal is dinner-party worthy though weeknight (if you like to do it up) friendly — if you make the sauce ahead of time, the meal comes together in about 20 minutes.

4. …but after a brief simmer, the sugar will melt, you’ll add the Port or Banyuls and simmer for 10 more minutes, at which point the sauce will begin coating the back of a spoon, a sign you have a most delicious, sweet-sharp syrup in the house… woot woot!

2. Place them in a cold skillet. (This, by the way, is my new favorite pan. It’s 5 qts, which is to say it can fit a lot of food at one time. Moreover, it distributes heat evenly, it cleans like a dream, it’s oven-safe, and it’s nice to look at to boot. Seen previously hereandhere.)

Crispy Duck Breasts With Pineapple Scallion Sauce Recipe On Food52

4. … the skin is crisp and in instant-read thermometer — can’t say enough about my Thermapen — registers around 130ºF for medium rare. Transfer duck breasts to a plate to rest.

This summer I invested in a good instant-read thermometer: a Thermapen. I can’t recommend this tool enough. Duck breasts in particular have been a challenge for me to cook — so many times I’ve pulled them from the heat, let them rest, only to cut into them to find flesh too rare or way overcooked. What is hard about cooking meat like steaks or duck breast is that when you get that good sear, it’s misleading — the meat may feel firm to the touch, but you might only be feeling your nice sear … what lies beneath is a guess. The Thermapen takes the guesswork out.

I do not use the star anise, because the first time I made this, I didn’t have any on hand, and I absolutely loved the flavor of the sauce as it was, so I’ve since omitted it. I imagine a single star anise would impart a very nice, subtle spice to the sauce, so absolutely use it if you have one on hand.

Crispy Duck Breast With Plum Star Anise Sauce

Finally, if you have a hard time finding duck, D’artagnan is a great source. I’ve sampled all of the duck varieties they sell. The Muscovy is the tastiest. It’s pricey, but if you think about what it costs to eat duck breast out at a restaurant, it’s not so bad. For perfectly cooked duck with crispy skin, this recipe starts by scoring the breast, placing it in a cold pan, and cooking it low and slow.

Sohla El-Waylly is a culinary creator, video host, and CIA graduate whose work can be found on Serious Eats, Bon Appetit, The New York Times, Food52, YouTube, and more.

Here’s a secret most restaurants don’t want you to know: That $40 duck breast they're selling you is one of the easiest pick-ups* in a kitchen. During busy service, I’d take searing duck breast over poaching eggs, hands down. With just a few simple steps, you can impress friends and charm lovers with fantastic duck breast, any night of the week.

Five Spice Duck Breast With Blackberries Recipe

Unlike chicken, duck breast has a hue and texture akin to that of red meat and is safe to consume medium-rare, so bring on the pink. Perfectly cooked duck breast will have moist and juicy meat, with a luscious and crunchy skin. The first step is to score the fat to help it render more efficiently. Ducks are busy commuter birds who need lots of fat