Our family eats a lot of chicken. I was buying chicken breast only when it went on sale for 2.00 or less. Cooking it in large batches and freezing it for future 'fast food'. I felt I was saving money because of the price and that there was no waste to the breasts.
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I have a LARGE family to feed and have been thinking about doing this too. I don't have a deep freezer and am worried about freezer burn. Do you know the best way to freeze cooked and uncooked meat?
While ALL meats are cheaper to buy in bulk; giving your pets tons of fat and skin is as unhealthy for your pets.
A healthy way to use all of your chicken is to render out as much of the fat as possible from the skins, leaving them nice and crisp. You can give strips of that to your dog on occasion for a tasty treat that won't stop their hearts years too early from eating garbage. NO bones to the dogs unless they're hard bones and large enough that the dog can't swallow the whole bone. That means no chicken or pork bones.
If your serious about using the entire animal and not wasting; save the pure rendered fat to make soap. It's easy to do, will be very creamy without any odor at all unless you add scent to it. It's also fun to do.
It takes all of 5 minutes or so to cook deboned chicken. If it's precooked, the meat won't absorb any added flavor or spices, leaving it bland and dry. You can't fix that even if you slather the outside in spices.
if you're intent on double cooking everything, make big pots of totally porecooked meals like a chicken stew and freeze an entire meal in small containers; ideally recycled plastic food containers.
With a little practise you will find that you can get almost all of the meat off the bone and the fillets will be exactly like the boneless ones you buy in the store.
I went to a class this week and learned how to pressure can meat. They gave samples and they were delicious. They don't look great in the bottles so I was hesitant, but they were wonderful. I have a pressure canner and when meat is inexpensive, I plan on canning it.
I'm sorry but I disagree about this tip.
I thought I would too save money by buying the boned-in as I have always waited for the boneless, skinless breasts to go on sale then stock up for various dishes, broth,etc...
Last week our local grocer had boned-in for $.99lb (sale around here) so I bought what I normally buy to make my stock (6 lb). What I found surprised me to say the least.
My stock was greasy and almost no taste, and after I weighed the cooked meat vs the poundage before, I lost 2lbs.
When I factored in the new price, I actually ended up paying $1.49 lb only 20 cents cheaper than skinless,boneless (on sale $1.69).
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