Discrete units of chicken breast

August 14, 2023 12:19 PM

I'm hoping to eat more chicken breast (or tenderloin), but I'd like to make the process as simple as possible. Looking for a product that's basically just pieces of chicken breast (or chicken breasts themselves, or tenderloin) that are all [close to] the same size and thickness, so I can just cook x number of them without worrying about prep.

I'm trying to eat better, save money (and eat better) by not going out to eat for lunch so much, and gain muscle, in roughly that order. Luckily I have a lot of headroom re eating better, because I mostly eat fast food at lunch, and I don't have a lot of expectations for how good my food tastes.

I can make chicken breast taste pretty good when I cook it, but it's kind of a pain, and I know the inconvenience of doing that (opening the package up, thawing it, separating it into freezer bags, and cutting the breast lengthwise so that it browns without drying out, let alone marinating or rubbing it with salt etc) keeps me from doing it more. Ideally I would have a freezer bag filled with equally thin chicken breast [pieces] so that I could just say "I want to eat 12 oz of chicken for lunch, I'll grab 12/x pieces and get to work." I assume fast food places have something like this for their grilled chicken sandwiches.

Most of the frozen chicken breast packages I've tried so far are just the same thing I can buy in a foam tray, only some of them have helpfully been frozen together already. Can you help me find my dream processed chicken breast product?

posted by Polycarp to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Chicken thighs seem to be more uniformly shaped. They also usually have more flavor than chicken breast. That might be one option to think about, except that they are less lean than breast and some like to prep thighs first, to remove some of the extraneous fat.

Another product to look for would be filleted or precut breast. You'll pay more per pound for that, but it may be more uniformly sizes and you might have to do less prep overall depending on what exactly you are preparing.

Another idea is to go to a butcher and ask for pieces cut to a particular size, or pieces of a particular roughly-uniform size. You then bring them home and marinade/freeze/etc.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:26 PM on August 14, 2023

Trader Joe's sells bags of frozen chicken breast tenderloins, which are just like smaller pieces of chicken breast (if I had to guess I'd say each piece is 1-1.5 oz). They're not perfectly uniform, but pretty close and I use them the way you describe - I'll take 2-3 out of the freezer (they never stick together), stick them in the air fryer without thawing, and they're ready to eat in about 12 minutes.
posted by telegraph at 12:35 PM on August 14, 2023

Costco has both tenderloins and thin-sliced breasts that seem like they would be suitable. (Results when viewing those pages may vary based on your location.)
posted by staggernation at 12:41 PM on August 14, 2023

Costco freezer section, I accidentally bought the tenderloins recently instead of thighs and I think that’s what you want. All the pieces are about the same size and frozen individually, not together.
posted by lepus at 12:46 PM on August 14, 2023

So if you don't want to worry about prep, why are you worrying about prep? Why not just buy pre-cooked chicken? Most stores sell Perdue or Tyson brands, although I find them a bit slimy. Trader Joe's grilled chicken is really good though. And some stores will take unsold rotisserie chickens, pull the meat off, and sell that. Alternatively, if low price trumps taste, you could always just buy canned chicken as well.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:03 PM on August 14, 2023

Costco's Kirkland boneless skinless chicken breasts, the ones that come 2 per compartment in the big saddlebag, are remarkably uniform. The compartments are either perforated or at least have enough margin between to easily separate with scissors.

Costco also has frozen grilled chicken breasts in thick and thin options, and frozen grilled patties. You can expect those to be pretty uniform. I have used the patties before, I just throw them in the air fryer frozen.

I'm pretty sure every Kroger-family grocery store, if not just all grocery stores with a deli, sell grilled chicken breasts on the hot bar, and you could probably place a bulk order for a freshly-cooked set.

If you're willing to prep a lot but only occasionally, set aside a day a month to buy, cut up, and vacuum seal 4- or 6-oz pouches of chicken and sous vide it all. Freeze in the packet it cooked in.

Alternately buy a meat grinder and make and weigh out your own patties. You can do it in a food processor, but the results tend to be a little uneven.

Finally, you could hire a personal chef - look at Craigslist as well as your local buyselltrade groups and also yelp - to do any of the above for you, and it'd probably still be cheaper than eating out but probably not quite as cheap as the Costco grilled frozen options. You'll find a lot of personal trainers meal-prepping on the side, none of them would blink an eye at "please prepare and portion out Xlbs of white meat chicken a week" jobs.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:15 PM on August 14, 2023

I buy the Costco breasts, cut them bite sized, salt pepper oil, and cook them up in a few batches (2-3 lbs at a time). I freeze the cooked bite sized pieces on a cookie sheet for a few hours then double bag them in the freezer and I can just pour out the number of ounces I want and warm them up as needed.
posted by OrangeVelour at 1:44 PM on August 14, 2023

Where I live, an Asian store would have the answer to your question.
posted by mumimor at 2:27 PM on August 14, 2023

I would start by verifying what you're doing isn't already sufficient. I do this by just buying raw refrigerated chicken breasts at my grocery store, at least where I live they don't vary wildly. The chicken breasts are roughly all uniform to the point where I don't really even need to use a scale to make sure, if one looks extra large or small I can just tell by looking at it. I cook like 6 lbs at once and portion them out individually, either in my fridge or vacuum sealed and into my freezer. If you wanted smaller "units" you could cut them in half or quarters before storing.
posted by firefly5 at 4:07 PM on August 14, 2023

I realize that this doesn't answer your question directly, but I find that chicken breast (and really any meat) is so much better in the air fryer. Cooks faster, tastes better, doesn't heat up the kitchen, easier clean up. We have a Cosori like this.
posted by radioamy at 4:40 PM on August 14, 2023

My partner eats chicken breast in salad almost every lunch. I sous vide her a few chicken breasts every few days (150 f). You can do them to exactly how you want them and there is no difference between thin and thick parts of them. I also use the sous vide for pork loin and pork tenderloin a lot. A big advantage to this is that you can make pork perfectly safe at 130 f and it is so delicious and moist. Leftover pork you can use for tacos, ramen, etc.
posted by snofoam at 5:39 PM on August 14, 2023

I order big bags of Tyson chicken breasts from Amazon Fresh, 2.5 lbs for $13.79. It's roughly "thin sliced". If you want more fresh looking chicken, they also have "Just Bare" breast fillets in 1 pound bags.

Though usually I buy thighs. I stick one big piece in the air fryer, add some gochujang, and it's a decent lunch.
posted by kschang at 8:46 PM on August 14, 2023

Another idea could be cubes of turkey breast. Here at least, we don't get cubes of chicken breast in big supermarkets, but we do get cubes of turkey meat, frozen and fresh. It has about the same nutritional value as chicken and is easy to cook.
posted by mumimor at 12:22 AM on August 15, 2023

Perdue "Perfect Portions" is like this, sold in the refrigerated meat case, not frozen, in 24 oz. packages with five individually wrapped raw chicken breasts per package. The breasts are trimmed and approximately the same size as one another. They cost more per pound than the foam tray packed ones but require much less prep to all come out the same. (They also involve a lot of extra plastic packaging if that's a concern.)
posted by Daily Alice at 8:39 AM on August 15, 2023