Cheap Chicken Breast

So, as part of the homestead, I try to find good deals on items that we use on a regular basis. When I was at the local grocery store the other day picking up a beef roast to make some beef and noodles, I found bone-in chicken breast for $0.99 a Lb.  Now I have been keeping an eye on the boneless skinless chicken breast and it has been running $2.99 a Lb. Some quick mental math told me that I have a knife, and can turn bone-in into boneless skinless, at a significant savings. Now, I have done this before, and knew how easy it really is, so I thought I would share this info with our readers, so that you too can save some money. 

Step 2

The key to this whole thing is to watch for a significant difference in price between the two items, if the boneless skinless is at least twice the price, you can save money buying bone in. The next thing is to buy quality meat from a meat counter, don’t buy the ultra discount stuff from a big box store, just on general principal. 

After getting your chicken breasts home, find a good sharp knife, a cutting board, some plastic wrap, and some freezer bags. 

Step 1: Rinse the chicken breast under cool running water, this will help to get some bacteria off of the meat. 

Step 2: Slide your finger under the skin, and simply pull it off, along with most of the fat.  

Step 3

Step 3: Place the breast on your cutting board.  Start at the open side of the breast, and begin cutting down to the rib cage. Your goal here is to run your knife right along the ribs, so that you get all the meat off of them. Cut all the way down to the top of the ribs, and you will find a little white tendon, go ahead and cut that too. 

Step 4: Take your knife and run it in behind the wish bone, and pop the bottom of it free from the front of the rib cage, then finish cutting down to top of the spine. 

Step 5: Rotate the breast on the cutting board, and repeat the steps on the other side. At this point you should have both halves cut down and almost off the spine, and the wish bone will still be imbedded in the front of the breast meat. 

Step 6

Step 6: Split your fingers and run them down each side of the spine, holding the meat firmly on the cutting board, and pull the rib cage up and away from the meat, the remaining spine and bones should pull right out. Now all you have for bones is the wishbone. 

Step 7: Use your finger, and remove the chicken tenders from the breast. Now cut down on the outside of each side of the wishbone, and separate the breast halves. You will be left with a wishbone, that has just a little meat on it, connected to a thin strip of meat that runs where the spine used to

Step 8: Wrap, label, and freeze.

Other ideas include cutting the meat into chunks, and canning it, if you wish. I will cover canning in a later post. You can also save the rib cages, and boil them to make chicken broth, which we will also cover in a later post.