Bulk Chicken Preparation

If you've been following along on Sarah's Deals on Facebook this week, you have seen a lot of chatter about Zaycon Foods. They sell quality meats in bulk at great prices at events around the country. And, they are bringing their deals to Michigan later this year. Yes, the website says 2012, but I'm working with them to help set up an event this fall! Use this link to Zaycon Foods to register now (no matter where in the US you are) to be notified of an event coming to your area. Prices range from $1.35-$1.65/#

I received a review delivery from Zaycon Foods and want to share with you my ideas for preparing and freezing 40# of All Natural, Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts. There were about 100 (sorry! tired math brain!) 50 LARGE breasts in the package, so I immediately set about getting them prepped for later use.

I started with my grill:

We put BBQ sauce on 3 of them right away and ate them for a late dinner. The taste was great! The rest of the grilled chicken breasts had no seasoning or marinade on them and were cut up into strips for later use in fajitas, Chicken Pasta Salad and other dishes.

Since the chicken breasts were so large, I did a pretty sloppy trimming of them (more on that in a minute). Once the chicken was clean of the very little fat they had to begin with, I put them in meal portions in freezer bags and added my marinades. The reason behind this is two-fold. Number one, the marinade helps protect the meat from freezer burn. Number two, when I take the meat out of the freezer to thaw later, the meat marinates as it thaws!

Then, I just squeeze as much air out as possible and stack in the freezer. Side note from the last time I did this: It's best to use shelves that are not wire. Not frozen chicken with more chicken stacked on top of it will squeeze between the wires and get stuck. Thus requiring removal of said shelf from the freezer to thaw the meat and remove it from the shelf. Yeah.

Either from fresh or from the bags with the BBQ sauce, I suggest making Shredded Chicken BBQ.

Then, that sloppy trimming got turned into a couple things. I started by further trimming the meat and making little pieces to fry up with cooking spray. These are then packaged in individual meal size portions to be added later to casseroles, Creamy Chicken Bake, Chicken Helper or noodle and sauce dishes.

Then I made Crock Pot Chicken Broth. Which I totally plan to use to make Egg Noodles and Chicken Soup via my Turkey Soup recipe.

The byproduct of the broth was that the remaining pieces of chicken were cooked, so I separated them from the rest of the remnants and crumbled them (very much like getting canned chicken) and added seasoning and dressing to make Chicken Salad.

So, if you want to be one of the first to be notified when a Zaycon Foods event is coming to your area, head over and sign up now. The prices are amazing for the quality (less per # than I've been seeing for FROZEN, BAGGED chicken at the stores lately). And there's a GREAT FAQ section on the Zaycon Foods website too.

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**I received product from Zaycon Foods to review and share my honest opinion with you. As always, thoughts are my own. This post contains referral/affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Policy.**