How to Freeze Chicken Breasts
Does your family love chicken recipes? We do and I love to stock up on chicken breasts when they go on sale. I used to just come home and shove the packages of boneless chicken breast or bone in chicken breast in the freezer. Now I do things a little differently and with the tips I am sharing today you can almost cut the time it takes to make dinner in half. I am going to share a little kitchen tip on How to Freeze Chicken Breasts that helps me get dinner on the table fast.
I am all about saving money when it comes to feeding my family. One of the ways I love to save money in the kitchen is to buy bulk chicken when it goes on sale.
Boneless chicken breasts can be very expensive and I hate it when I want to make one of our favorite chicken breast recipes but that week the price of chicken breasts are extremely high. I’m sure it’s probably a sales ploy from the grocery stores. They know you are going to need to buy chicken breasts no matter what the price. But if you buy them and freeze chicken breasts when they are on sale you can literally save hundreds of dollars a year on your grocery bill.
One of the issues with buying chicken in bulk is that those styrofoam packages they come in take up a lot of space in the freezer. If you divide the chicken breasts into meal serving sizes you can kill two birds with one stone.
Why Dividing and Freezing Chicken is a great idea
- You will save freezer space and be able to stock up on chicken when it is on sale.
- You will have meal size portions of chicken at the ready for your families favorite chicken breast recipes.
I have a couple of favorite chicken breast recipes that I make all the time. Each week we enjoy at least one recipe made with boneless chicken breasts. Sometimes we go crazy and eat a chicken recipe twice in one week.
We love crock pot pulled chicken sandwiches, chicken tacos, homemade chicken fettuccini alfredo, boneless fried chicken tenders and bbq chicken breasts.
One of the things I hate about making the chicken tacos, chicken fettuccini alfredo, and boneless fried chicken tenders is the time it takes to cut the boneless chicken up.
Like most other families out there dinner time is hectic around my house. Especially during the school week when the kids need to get in bed early. The best way to cut time off of cooking dinner is to have most of your ingredients ready to go.
At one time I had dreams of packing my freezer full of freezer meals. The idea appeals to me but when I think of all the work involved in shopping, prepping and bagging my eyes start to roll. So this is my semi freezer meal plan for my chicken recipes.
Supplies needed to freeze chicken breasts in bulk
- boneless chicken breasts
- a sharp knife
- a cutting board or cutting mat
- zip top freezer bags
Gather your supplies and set everything out on your work space. Trim each boneless chicken breast of any fat or grizzle that way be present.
Bonus Tip: By the way you can do the same with bone in chicken breast if you know how to bone a chicken breast. It’s not that hard to do and sometimes chicken on the bone is cheaper than boneless chicken breasts. If you do happen to bone the chicken breasts use the normally discarded chicken bones to make homemade chicken stock.
How I divided chicken breast to freeze
Now I know that I need 4 good sized boneless chicken breast to make enough chicken tacos or chicken alfredo to feed my family. There are usually leftovers that someone will eat the next day for lunch or even dinner the next night. Thats about 2-3 pounds of chicken per recipe. If your family is smaller then you will need less chicken per meal. For most chicken taco recipes it calls for 1 pound of cut up chicken breasts. That’s about 1 1/2 boneless chicken breasts. You will make adjustments based on your family size.
Divide the chicken breast based on the amount of chicken you will need for each recipe you will use the chicken for.
Now for the recipes that require the chicken cut into chunks or strips you will cut the correct amount of chicken breasts into bite sized chunks or strips.
Once you have all the chicken cut for a recipe write the recipe name and the date on the zip topped bag. Put all the cut up chicken in the bag, remove as much air as possible and close the top. Set it aside. Move on to the next recipe and prepare the chicken for it. If you need whole chicken breasts for a recipe place the number of trimmed up chicken breasts in a labeled bag. Do each bag one at a time because you will never be able to tell the bags/recipes apart after you have done a few.
Repeat with all of the chicken you have. When you are done flatten each bag as much as possible and place the bags in a nice even stack in the freezer. Once the chicken is frozen solid you can place them and stack them however you need to in your freezer. Freezing them in this neat compact way allows you to store them in the freezer saving as much space as available.
Sharing at Fluster’s Creative Muster – Party #105
Heather
January 6, 2015 at 9:27 amI love this idea! I usually buy the more expensive individual chicken breast pack. But this would be so much cheaper!! I love the idea of cutting up the chicken breast before you freeze too! That would save so much time and my husband would love it too! He hates cutting up chicken! Pinned and much appreciated!!
Arlene Mobley
January 6, 2015 at 11:08 amHeather
Cutting up the chicken before freezing really saves so much time. Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate the share on Pinterest!
Emily @ Life on Food
January 6, 2015 at 12:33 pmI freeze chicken too. I cannot stand paying more when I know I have gotten a cheaper price. I need to get better about cutting it up ahead of time for certain recipes. That is a great idea!
Arlene Mobley
January 6, 2015 at 7:16 pmEmily
Thank you! I know what you mean. I hate having to pay full price for chicken.
Rachel G
January 12, 2015 at 2:04 amMy family always did this when I was growing up–not so much to save money, but to make life more convenient (there are not really any sales or specials at the outdoor meat markets in Malaysia, haha!) My brother was usually the one assigned to chopping up mountains of chicken at a time–then we’d just get out a bag for each dinner (a family of 9 went through a lot of chicken) and it made cooking much faster on a daily basis!
Arlene Mobley
January 12, 2015 at 11:10 pmRachel
I can only imagine the organizing it takes to keep a family of nine running smoothly!
Alanna @ Alanna and Co
January 12, 2015 at 1:34 pmI do the same thing! I also marinate a lot of chicken so it’s nice and easy to marinate, defrost, and cook right away!
Arlene Mobley
January 12, 2015 at 11:09 pmAlanna
That is a great tip about adding the marinade before freezing! Thanks for sharing it with my readers!
Amanda
January 14, 2015 at 8:51 pmI freeze chicken breasts all the time, I have no idea why it never occurred to me to add the marinade before freezing, or cut up the chicken first. Great tips!! 😀
J K
January 18, 2015 at 6:18 pmi do this with leftover citrus zest. I measure it and label the bag. I also chop basil and add evoo,measure, label and freeze. You can do this with lots of ingredients. However, I prefer to.do the meat in a vacuum-sealer. It has paid for itself over and over.
Arlene Mobley
January 19, 2015 at 1:15 pmJK
I have always wanted one of those vacuum sealers.
Spinningmom7
January 20, 2015 at 12:20 pmAnother great way to save time is kitchen shears.I learned to use them at work and they really make the job a lot easier.Good for trimming and cutting.
Jhoei
March 8, 2019 at 7:59 pmChicken is always a part of our meal so I usually buy chicken during the weekends and freeze it because I am busy at work during weekdays. Thanks for sharing this. you gave me an idea how to freeze them properly.