Rigid origami is a model of origami in which thin, rigid panels are joined by hinges that allow the surface to fold. Understanding rigid folding behavior is important for a variety of engineering applications, especially in the context of deployable origami mechanisms fabricated from high modulus materials like acrylic, metal, and cardboard. While convex polyhedra constructed of rigid faces and hinged edges are themselves rigid even if a finite number of creases are added to the faces, introducing a small cut to the surface of the polyhedron eliminates rigidity and may allow for a polyhedron to be completely flattened. In particular, we are interested in the development of a minimally altered, rigidly flattenable origami cube for applications in deployable structures and shape-changing robots. In this work, we present a kinematic model of a bistable, flat-foldable origami cube. We also implement an analytic framework to minimize the cut length that allows for a rigid flattening of this cube, finding the minimum to be four identical cuts, each of which are approximately 8.6% of the side length. This approach was experimentally verified with tensile testing to construct an energy profile of the cube over deformation. Additionally, by changing the number of cuts that are placed on the cube, we can predictably manipulate or eliminate the energetic barrier when flattening the cube, as well as adjust the amount of energy dissipated over a deformation cycle. Overall, we experimentally demonstrate the effect of adding small slits on the system’s energetic behavior to enable rigid foldability and programmable stiffness, thus opening up the possibility for usage in engineering and robotic applications.