Frozen Chicken Breasts?

I was using frozen in the past. To thaw it out I just put the frozen pieces in a bowl of water in the fridge the night before. That works pretty well. After that you can marinate it or treat it just like you would fresh chicken. Grill it bake it or do whatever you normally do with chicken.

Personally I think the fresh non-frozen chicken tends to be more juicy and I like that I can just pull it out of the fridge and use it when I get the time. There were a few days I forgot to thaw out my chicken and I had to rethink what i was going to make that night. On the nutrition value I don't know if it's a huge difference.

How much chicken do you buy at a time that it costs $35?

We keep a stock of frozen skinless chicken breasts in the freezer at all times, and you can do anything with them you can do with fresh - the freezing does change the consistency a tad but not noticeably so.

I thaw them in a bowl of water, which both thaws them more quickly and rinses off some of the sodium they add (the only real downside to them).

If you forget to thaw them ahead of time, if you are going to cube them up to cook them I just run hot tap water over mine to rapidly thaw them - the middle remains slightly frozen but it's soft enough to cut up, then I just cube them small and cook them over low heat to complete the thawing and make sure the cubes are cooked through.

Unless you go to a butcher and get fresh chicken or dress it yourself, all meat in grocery stores come to the store frozen and the thaw it out and put it in the meat case. I used to work at a grocery store.

I buy frozen breasts or breast tenderloins all the time, because I'm a college student and they're cheap. They're slightly less high quality, but in a good recipe there's very little difference. To thaw, I do what's been suggested and put them in a bowl with water overnight, or I use my microwave's defrost option. Good luck.

I always buy frozen chicken breasts and never thaw it before using. I just throw it on the grill, in a pan in the oven or in the crockpot and it all comes out wonderful

We buy frozen. We pay about... $22-24 for a good 15-20 chicken breasts or so at a place here called "No Frills". Honestly, we just thaw out the chicken and find that it's always really juicy. I haven't noticed a difference between that and fresh. I say just avoid buying anything that's pre-seasoned or anything. Get a straight up white chicken breast, thaw it, etc...

Of course, it can get dry if you're not using enough moisture to bake it, slow cook it, etc... but that's the nature of white meat!

I buy frozen and get waaaaay more bang for my buck. Easy to prepare, most of the time I boil mine with a few spices and then I also put the broth into jars and use my own homemade chicken broth for things (waaaaaay lower sodium) You can also de-frost in the microwave, (takes me about 20min to do it that way) you can defrost in cold water (not warm, alot of people make that mistake, that's when bacteria grows) or take it out of the freezer a day or two prior and I put the chicken into a tupperware with a sealed lid in the fridge. Hope that helps.

P.s. Yes you can marinate it, but I've only ever done it after it's been defrosted. Good luck.

If I have forgotten to thaw or defrost (what ever the proper anal way of stating that is), I will boil them in water for 30 to 40 minutes. I like to add my seasoning after they are cooked. They seem to be pretty juicy and tasty. I will also buy the pre-seasoned frozen chicken as well.

I also buy frozen fruits. Add a little water, ice cubes and non fat plain yogurt. I will add a little Splenda to give it a little sweetness and you have a really good treat after dinner.

I didn't mean to imply I was a grammar stickler or "anal". "dethaw" and "unthaw" are things I heard growing up, and they just don't make any sense in the context... its like saying "unboil" when you mean boil or "defry" when you mean fry.

I will buy high quality frozen chicken but I won't buy a big box of frozen breasts. We did once and they were awful.

We use frozen chicken all the time to cook with. In fact, i have some marinating now for fajitas tomorrow...i've noticed no difference
Enjoy! :happy:

That's all I buy is the frozen Harvest Land chicken breast. I get them at BJ's Club, the ones that are individually sealed, take out what I need the night before and they taste great!

My favorite recipe is to put the chicken in a casserole dish, cover them with A Taste of Thai Peanut Satay Sauce (60 calories per serving - 0 sodium - 0 Cholesterol - how great is that!!) and mix the rest of the jar with a bag of frozen Japanese style veggies. Put the veggies on top of the chicken cover and bake of 45 minutes. It's super delicious.

Kathy

Not getting what you're paying for, Frozen chicken has added salt and lots of water. I would stick to fresh.

Most brand do so watch the labels. But, if you can fine Harvestland, get them because they are great - nothing added including salt and the chickens are cage free. They're individually sealed no there's no freezer burn. And at BJ's Club they are only about 3.00 per pound.

I buy 5 pound bags of frozen chicken breasts. what I do most often is open a bag or two of frozen brown rice. put it in the bottom of a large baking pan. I then put the frozen chicken breasts on top of the rice. I chop an onion and scatter all over the chicken and rice. you can put herbs or whatever you like best on the chicken. I also squeeze a lemon over all of it. I put a little dot of butter on each piece of chicken. I only mean a dot. this help the chicken to brown and adds flavor and richness to the dish. I add a half can of chicken broth to the pan.

This process takes 10 minutes at the most. put in a fairly hot oven, 380, for an hour, covered with aluminum foil. go about your business, take the aluminum foil off for the last ten minutes. this helps to brown the chicken and absorb the cooking liquid.

this is all very adjustable, you don't want to have too much liquid at the end of the process and if you do just let it simmer a while until the liquid evaporates. if it needs more time, that is fine too.

you can do anything to this basic chicken and rice recipe. you can add chopped celery, you can add salsa with a sprinkle of cheese on the top, you can add some green peas towards the end.

I'd been buying the bags of frozen boneless breasts from Walmart for years, but then noticed that more often than not, several pieces would be freezer burned. Might just be my local Walmart, though. The other week I was in a regular grocery store and there was a lady standing by the Smart Chicken in the meat case, handing out coupons. The cost for one package of Smart Chicken was the same as the cost for a whole bag of chicken at Walmart, but she explained to me that the difference between the two was that the Smart Chicken was never soaked in the vats of salt water, did not have that added disclaimer of "may contain up to 5% water", etc. I figured it was worth a try, so I picked up a package.

The difference in taste and quality floored me. The Smart Chicken had zero fat or weird bits of gristle hanging on. Each piece was solid meat, and the flavor was much better than the frozen bagged chicken I'd been buying for years.

I think I've reached a point in my head that it's worth the extra cost to buy the Smart Chicken, and just accept that we'll be eating less chicken and more of other things that the budget will allow in order to make sure the chicken we DO eat is really good.

Stop buying at Walmart, problem solved