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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Chicken Comparison - informational and a little boring

I've always wondered this...now I know.

Food City had bone in chicken breast for 88 cents a pound. I bought 18 pounds even for .95 a pound with tax.

My normal sale price for boneless chicken breast is 1.99. Historically, once a year, it will go down to $1.69. But 1.99 is more common. $2.16 with tax.

So is the savings on cleaning your own chicken worth it with these prices?

What I discovered is:
  • Each breast portion had a breast and a tenderloin on it. Tenderloin is $3.50+ a pound. But I'm not going to divvy it up because I wouldn't buy tenderloin compared to regular chicken breast.
  • There are several chunks of meat in weird little spots on the ribcage that I couldn't get off. I used knives, I used kitchen shears. They just didn't come off.
  • Removing the breast and tenderloin from the rib cage was really easy. There is a little spot towards the top. If you get you fingers in there the right way, it pulls off in one piece.
  • De-boning chicken is messy.
  • When I cleaned the meat I was able to snip off all bad parts with my shears to make a perfect piece of meat. Even with "boneless" chicken, I am constantly cutting off big wads of "stuff" all over it. And I often have to sip off little bones around the edges.

What I ended up with...
  • 18 chicken breasts
  • 18 chicken tenderloins
  • or 13 pounds of boneless chicken placed into 26 bags for future meals.
Math time!
17.11 / 13 = $1.32 a pound or of 61.11% of the regular cost.

I am happy with that price. It did take me an hour to debone 18 pounds but that included wrapping it in meal sized portions.

But wait, there's more...
I also had 18 chicken rib cage leftovers. With hunks of meat on them. You know what I did with that?

Chicken stock/broth...woot!

I snipped the rib cages with all those meat chunks on them until they fit in the crock pot. Then I filled it with water and went to bed. In the morning I drained all the liquid and filled it back up and set it on high again. The first batch was really strong, the second was a little weak. So I mixed the two.

I ended up with 1.75 gallons of chicken broth. And since the chicken was additive free, it's a salt free, spice free, preservative free stock/broth (is it stock or broth? I used both meat and bones - I'm undecided lol).

Store brand chicken broth in a can is 14.5 ounces for 54 cents. My scraps made 15.54 "cans" of stock for a savings of $8.39.

So I saved 19.36 on the whole deal for an hours worth of work. I ended with two high quality items. Plus I enjoyed doing it.

1 comment:

  1. Hi. I just found your blog tonight. Good stuff! I have been doing this same thing for years now, with a bit of a twist. After I've cooked up the broth/stock, I take the additional step and pick off all the little scraps of meat from the chicken bones, and throw them back into the stock, add chopped onion, a carrot or two and a celery stalk or two. Then freeze flat in gallon bags (or whatever is handy). I call this "chicken soup blank" because when I want to make any kind of chicken soup I'll just pull it out of the freezer and add a starch (noodles, rice, dumplings, use your imagination) and whatever other veggies and I've got a complete meal or two for essentially free. Keep up the good work!

    Deanna

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