This was last year’s picture, but it pretty much looked exactly the same this year too 
I just didn’t get the pictures in this time, it was already enough to cook this much!
Earlier this month, we mentioned a company called Zaycon foods that was offering their chicken sale. We shared why were were excited to try out this chicken and this company. Well, yesterday we picked up our two 40lb boxes of chicken. Now as we mentioned, this chicken was hormone free, antibiotic free natural chicken. It is not certified organic, but a good step towards a better chicken option with out the high price tag. It was only $1.69 each lb. for plump natural chicken breasts.
We decided to get 80 lbs of chicken. So this meant that we spent about $135 for 80 lbs of chicken. But the better news is that we have a more natural chicken option to eat from for the next 6-8 months and no need to buy anymore chicken for a while. We have purchased chicken breasts in cases before from our local grocery stores, but they were not a good quality chicken.
So we were really excited to have this option before us! Pick-up of the chicken was so super easy! It literally took 1 min and 30 seconds to pick up our two 40lb. boxes.
But then the fun just began….. that part may have been super simple. But when we came home, we had to rebag as it comes in a box with a sealed thick bag and then inside of this is four 10 lb bags of chicken breasts. We cleaned, trimmed (with very little trimming needed compared to the other places we have been getting it), cut and even cooked 40 lbs.
We froze 40lbs. cooked and 40 lbs raw. The reason we cooked half was that this is something we have done each year for a while. In fact, we shared about it one of the times we did this. I love to have cooked chicken on hand for dinner/lunch emergencies. With the chicken already cooked, I can make thousands of things in just a few minutes. So when I didn’t hit my “dinner by 10″ plan, I have cooked chicken, which is my personal biggest stumbling block in making dinner/lunch/breakfast.
We are not a freezer meal family. I have tried it before and my family was not a fan of reheated anything – no matter how well you try, cook or plan, a previously frozen meal never tastes the same. So I thought, sure it helps me to have freezer meals, but if my family doesn’t like it, then I am sure I can come up with another way. So I have cooked chicken, cooked beef and cooked breakfast meats that I just have to heat up in any dish and it is very quick. It makes meal prep very easy for me. So that is how I came to that compromise. My family cannot tell or have every complained about “re-heated” meats
So I also froze the other 40 lbs raw for the days that I actually do have a plan and stick to it
We were very impressed with this chicken! They were plump and looked like great quality chicken. And ultimately a great deal.
So the process of cooking and freezing 40 lbs. of chicken was an all day job. I am not going to lie – it is one of the worst days of the year when I have to cook and prepare chicken like this. It is hard work, your house smells terribly of chicken, and you will probably not want chicken for at least a week after that – but once you get through all of that, you will love having it already cooked for you. It is totally worth it, it just doesn’t feel like it at the time!
Half-way done!
We didn’t take pictures this time as it was already everything I had in me to cook this much, but it looked exactly like the last time we shared (even the same bowls – LOL). This time we ended up with 35 1-lb bags. We probably trimmed 2-3 lbs in total and then we reserved a couple of pounds for dinner (YES, I did make a chicken casserole for dinner and although the chicken was amazing, fresh, plump and good I have to be honest and say I did not enjoy it after being elbow deep in it all day – it should have been pizza night last night
After it was all said and done, we had a successful chicken day and my kitchen got a super scrub down (I do not like the thought of raw chicken juices anywhere!) and so all of the tough day’s work will be enjoyed for many days and months to come!
What this will do is save us time and money! Why not save ourselves a little time alongside these great savings? We’ll be able to use this over the next four months easily taking out what we need, defrosting and then either using the cooked chicken directly in salads, in casseroles, or on pasta dishes as the most popular and common uses for pre-cooked chicken! For these dishes, we have no need to defrost, rinse, cook, and chop because it has already been done.
As a side note: The USDA website states our cooked chicken will maintain its quality in the freezer for four months, whereas the frozen uncooked chicken will do so for nine months. What we were shocked by is the following statement: Note: Freezer storage is for quality only. Frozen foods remain safe indefinitely. That is when the item is stored at a consistent 0 degrees Fahrenheit! WOW! Good thing we’ll be eating this soon – I’m not sure if I could stomach 10 yr old chicken.
We want to hear from you! Did you order from Zaycon foods and if so, your thoughts on quality? What recipes would you use this chicken for? We would love to hear and try your ideas!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
We love Zaycon’s chicken and bacon. We have a box of bacon coming early November. They use our church parking lot for a distribution site. in turn, they give the church a box of what they are selling that day. We use it for potlucks at the church. They have good shrimp too!!! Actually, I’ve never been disappointed with their food!
Ah – I wondered if there was some way that they were compensating the pick-up locations as I noticed that almost all of them was a church. That is great! So far we are very impressed. Thanks for sharing your experience too!
I wonder how you cook all that chicken at once? Do you bake it, boil it or something else?
Hi Carla,
I actually use two big stock pots and boil it. It makes for a nice even cooking and I have found this method to be the best for freezing and defrosting. It can cook about 7-8 lbs. per pot and so it took several rounds – which is why it was a daunting all day job
Good question, so thanks for asking!
Have you every tried cooking it in the crockpot or just boiled? I’m thinking about giving that a try with 10lbs. of it or so and wondered if anyone else has had success with it
Well, I actually cook chicken in the crock pot quite frequently for just our meal that day, but crockpot cooking has parts that are more cooked/browned than others and I am sure it will be fine for freezing too. I just prefer the nice soft even cooking all around. That way if I wanted browned chicken, I can still put it in the oven, crockpot, or stove top after when I am preparing a meal. However, I am sure any method will work just fine.
Let us know your thoughts on when you have completed it! Thanks D!
It worked! My husband said we should just make sure to put enough water in (I’m guessing he added enough to not quite cover the chicken? I was putting kids to bed
, and we cooked it on low overnight. This morning it was very tender, easy to shred or chop, and it was all cooked evenly. Thanks again for posting this deal. I feel we have been so blessed by it!
We got our chicken breast earlier this month and we got 120 pounds! We do have a couple of more kids than you, so we probably needed more. We were thigh deep in it all day
But we shoot our own Deer and process the meat for that several times a year so the chicken processing day didn’t really bother me too much. I had hubby grill some that day then we froze some grilled already for me to reheat and add to a healthy salad for lunch. We tried flattening them after hubby realized how hard it was grilling them because they are so thick. Flattening didn’t go so well so my brilliant husband decided to slice them down the middle length wise and that works really well. We boiled some, we marinated some in teriyaki sauce, we sliced some into strips for fajitas and froze them like that. We use food saver bags though since that is how we always store our deer meat as well. With the deer meat and the chicken in the freezer we won’t need to buy a lot of meat except for some pork maybe.
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