How to: Freeze Raw Chicken

Now, one of my areas that I just could not figure out when I started freezing much of my food, was how to avoid freezer burn! I would often just take my meat and place it into the freezer in the packaging I purchased it in. This was a disaster for any product that was not being used within 2 weeks to a month. We often ate the remnants of freezer burned food!

I also ran into the problem of buying larger portions of chicken (lets say, 8 breasts in a pack) because it was cheaper that way. When I would put the whole package into the freezer, that meant I had to take all 8 breasts out at once when I wanted it! For two people, it was too much and I basically started throwing money in the trash by how much we wasted.

How to stop wasting frozen chicken!

So how did I combat this? I decide enough was enough, and I was going to take the 5-10 minutes it took to do this:




How do I do this?

I purchased 2 things, a pack of 1 quart freezer bags, and a pack of 1 gallon freezer bags.

I buy my bulk chicken breasts, wash and trim them as needed (sometimes I skip this step if I'm in a hurry, but I always appreciate it later when I take the time to do it).

Your going to want to individually wrap the chicken breasts in the 1 quart freezer bag, and squeeze ALL the air out before closing. When your done, you should have a pile of individually wrapped chicken. This is great, but I find it doesn't work as well if you don't do the next step.

Your going to take your 1 gallon bags, and put as many breasts that are individually wrapped into your gallon bag (I try not to fill more than halfway, so that I can get all the air out effectively.

You can now label the outside of your gallon bag, rather than the individuals baggies. You also can take out the exact amount of chicken you want to use. It defrosts faster, and be used in my 'from frozen' crock pot recipes, or just baked.

Its a super easy way to also have chicken ready and available for when a recipe calls!

Give it a try, let me know how you like it :)