Yesterday we picked up 40 lbs. of chicken breasts from Zaycon Foods. It was the 7th or 8th time we have purchased bulk chicken through them. We are always very pleased with the freshness, quality and taste.
Well, we take the opportunity to prep the chicken for freezing for a few months for meals for the next few months.
Basically, we freeze half of it raw and the other half cooked and chopped.
I wanted to share our process of how we go about cooking, freezing and storing for those of you that either get chicken in bulk from Zaycon Foods or another source.
Here’s that simple process – unlike the beef (which I can do in 1-hour), the chicken takes me more like 2 hours to prep 40 lbs.
First, for those of you that do get your chicken from Zaycon foods, we wanted to show how it comes packaged when you pick it up!
This is what the 40 lb. box of chicken breasts come as
Then inside is a sealed heavy duty bag.
Inside of that bag you will find 4 bags containing 10lbs. each of chicken breasts
So that is how they come pacakge! They come as 2 butterflied breasts and they so need some trimming and need to be separated into single breasts.
That is where my first favorite kitchen tool comes into play!
These kitchen shears are sold at Dollar Tree stores for only $1 each. These are a LIFESAVER in the kitchen! I use them for EVERYTHING! I personally get frustrated cutting raw chicken with a knife. It’s cumbersome, tedious, and time consuming. If you don’t already have kitchen shears, purchasing for this project alone will be worth it!
Here’s how I prep 40lb.s of chicken in a little less than 2 hours:
- I get a big stock pot of water boiling on the stove. I have 2 of them, so I get both going. I can boil (to cook) 5 lbs. of chicken at time in each pot.
- While the water is heating up, I start trimming the chicken. I literally trim the breasts in 2 of the 4 bags for boiling.
- Now while the chicken is boiling (about 30 minutes – so two rounds with 2 stock pots), this is when I trim and package the other 2 10lb. bags of chicken.
- I can trim and package the second half of the box in the amount of time that it takes to boil the first half.
- We lose about 4 lbs. of the weight in trimmings.
- I then package in Ziplocs with 2 breasts in each bag. I will make 2 chicken breasts work in my meals for a family of 7 no matter what 🙂 They go a very long way in casseroles, but even a pan fried version means every one gets a bit of chicken and we have hearty sides so that we don’t have to eat as much chicken. NOTE: I have had a lot of people question the small amount of chicken I feed my family at a meal. We always have tummy fillers with our meals and most of the time it is a protein filled filler like beans, quinoa, etc. We don’t need all of our protein from meat. Every once in a while, we will use more than one package for a meal depending on the recipe. In addition, my kids are very young and so they don’t eat much anyway. This amount will most likely change as they get older. Families have meatless meals all of the time, but this is an alternative we do to get a bit of meat most every meal.
- I then stick these in the freezer. I had 19 raw breasts, I kept three out for cooking for dinner the next 2 nights, so I froze 8 bags worth.
Now here’s where my next handy dandy tool comes in! A KitchenAid Mixer!
If you do not have one of these, no worries! I actually didn’t for the past few years. Only the last 2 times of doing this have I had the Kitchenaid Mixer. You can chop by hand, but it takes longer – about 20-30 minutes longer.
The KitchenAid is SO helpful for this next process of shredding/chopping the chicken.
- I will cut 4 breasts in 3rds for each round of chopping (using the kitchen shears – but cleaned as they were used on raw chicken previously!)
- I then turn the mixer on and it will shred/chop in less than 1 minute!
Shredding
Done
- Now I have two full bowls of shredded/chopped chicken and it is time for bagging.
- For these ones, I use sandwich size bags. I put 1.5 scoops of chicken in each bag.
This amount of chicken is perfect for last minute dinners and I can make almost any recipe (other than a panfried chicken recipe) out of this pre-cooked chicken. Because it is a lot smaller amount, it will go much further! I ended up with 41 bags of cooked chicken! We use 2-3 per week, so I am looking at several months worth of chicken in just these!
And that’s it! I do dread chicken day, but it is so worth the effort for both the budget and my time!
In 2-hours, you have 41 pre-cooked bags of chicken and 8 bags of 2 raw chicken breasts per bag for 49 meals total! This will last our family for several months as we usually have a chicken meal 3 times per week.
By the way, clean-up is a breeze. I use latex gloves (grocery bags over the hands works well too!) and keep a garbage bag close to put the old used packaging in and the stock-pots keep the spillage and grease inside the pot and I keep my Homemade Antibacterial Wipes and Kitchen Surfaces Disinfectant close by to quickly wipe up!
My Homemade Natural Cleaning Wipes Recipe HERE.
My Natural Food Surfaces and Kitchen Disinfectant Recipe HERE
How do you prepare your chicken for future cooking/storage? Have you bought Zaycon Chicken before?
If you would like to find out about the affordable, more natural meats available in your area (it’s nationwide), visit this site HERE.
BreeAnna McManus
Do you save the broth you make? Save it to use in future meals, You can freeze it in ice cube trays so you can grab just what you need.
Janet Groll
I saved the trimmings and used it in my soup stock. After it cooked a while, I did filter it but most of the nest trimmings were broken down. Wished I saw the Kitchenaid trick before I chopped by hand two weeks ago!
Linda
This looks like an awesome product. There’s an event close to me next week. Thank you so much !
Ashley
What does the 40 lb box cost?
Lynell
In our event in Nebraska it was about $2 a pound once you figured in tax.
Cathy sandell
Do u season the meat before you freeze?
Amanda
How do you re-heat the shredded chicken?
Sandi
I get chicken breasts at the local Wegmans for $2.19 a pound. I get 8 lbs of chicken per month (10 breasts) for a family of 5. There is little fat of cartilage. I can get 3 good sized cutlets from
each breast and enough nuggets from two breasts to feed five. Three adults and two children under twelve. I haven’t tried shredding because I don’t know any shredded chicken recipes. I try to season them all before I freeze, saves time. I do the same with hamburger. Buy 10 pounds at $1.99 per pound. Divide it into 4-5 packs, season and freeze. Fish and 1-2 pork dishes round out the main courses for the month with vegetables, beans and starches.
Snow
I throw the trimmings in the crock pot. At the end of the day Put the cooked scraps and broth through our smoothie blender and freeze portions for cat food. They love it.
Toni
I love, love Zaycon chicken! We are empty nesters, so you can imagine that 40 pounds seems like an immense amount for us, but I find it an economical and efficient way for us to enjoy meat in our diet. When I get my order, I cut about half of the breasts into large cubes and pressure can them in pints. Very handy for casseroles, fajitas, burritos, chili, etc. The other half of the breasts I cut in half down the center then slice horizontally into cutlets. I freeze these slices individually for grilling or recipes that use raw chicken. I usually save a couple of breast halves to semi-freeze then grind with my Kitchenaid grinder. I freeze the result in 1/2 pound portions. I save all of the scraps in the freezer to add to rotisserie chicken bones and vegetable scraps to make stock (which I also pressure can).
melissa
I recently discovered Zaycon and purchased 80 lbs of chicken. I canned 20 lbs. It turned out just like your shredded chicken and is so handy to have on the shelf. You should try it. It lasts a long time and does not take up my freezer space. As I use the canned chicken up, I take out more from the freezer (raw, vacuumed sealed) and can more. I posted a video on youtube, showing how the chicken turns out after canning. Let me know if you want the link. Thanks for the post!!
Jasmine Crosley
would this work for chicken breast sandwhiches?