Question:
Hello, I just bought your book and have been enjoying stocking my freezer! Do you have any ideas for freezing chicken? In the past I have just seasoned it then froze it, but your marinades are so wonderful that I thought I would see what you do for chicken. Thanks, the book is great!

-Summer

Answer:

Thank you for purchasing a copy of my book. I am glad you have been enjoying the recipes.

Basically for all my Chicken recipes except for two, you need cubed or shredded chicken.

You can cube frozen chicken breasts (thaw the chicken  just until you can cut through the meat easily) Or you can freeze your raw chicken breasts for 30 minutes and then cube.  When your chicken is cubed, place 4 cups into each zip top bag, after chicken is all bagged pour in a marinade, label and freeze.

Any marinade will work (I’m a big fan of Lowry’s 30 minute marinades), even Italian salad dressing makes a great marinade.  If you don’t have anything you can use 1 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of minced garlic and 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice makes a great marinade.  You can also marinade your chicken with soy sauce or flavored vinegar (just a few tablespoons per bag)

Another way to stock your freezer with chicken is to first  marinade the chicken for 15 minutes up to 24 hours and then lay out 10 chicken breasts on a foil lined baking sheet. Bake in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes. Check to make sure meat has been cooked through, cool the meat, cube it and then bag up chicken cubes in zip top bags. Add a few tablespoons of a marinade to the bag and then freeze it.  The pre-cooked cubed chicken will be a little more dry then raw, marinated frozen chicken cubes.

I just discovered a precooked turkey breast that you can buy at Costco ( found in the Deli section) and it costs around $4.95 a pound. It costs more then chicken breasts, but saves a lot of work and clean up to buy it this way. It tastes like it’s been smoked and has some seasoning around the outside of the meat (it is the size of a football). I think I may switch to using the Turkey breast instead of chicken for cubing because it is so much easier. It is precooked, easy to cube and has very little fat.