How to Process Zaycon Chicken

Here's a simple, easy way to process boneless skinless chicken breasts. I did 40 pounds of chicken in 30 minutes and made a bunch of quick freezer to crockpot meals, too!

So. Many. Questions. about the Zaycon Fresh chicken! I go into more detail in the blog post below, but I also have a quick YouTube video that goes over how I processed the chicken:

I placed my order for with Zaycon Fresh, super excited to get such a phenomenal deal – FAR cheaper than I was finding at my local grocery store or Costco.

A few days before my pickup, however, I started to panic a little. I was second-guessing my decision to buy 40 pounds of chicken at once – especially since I didn’t have a ton of room in my refrigerator.

(If you’re interested in getting great quality meat at great prices, you can click here to learn more about Zaycon Fresh).

Picking Up

How to quickly and easily process Zaycon Fresh Chicken!

I picked up the chicken from the truck on time, and it took less than five minutes (although I understand that if I arrived at a busy time, there could have been a line and I may have had to wait). The box they loaded into the back of my car was small (but it did weigh 40 pounds – I checked on my scale when I got home!), and the entire box from the refrigerated truck felt cold, which was reassuring (hey, I didn’t know what to expect before I picked up!).

I had a super busy day that day, and knew I wouldn’t have time to do anything with the 40 pounds of chicken, so I cleared a shelf in my refrigerator and put the box in there until I could deal with it the next day.

Processing the Zaycon Chicken

I was crazy busy the NEXT day, too (as always), and didn’t have much time to work on the chicken. But I knew that I didn’t want to stick all of the chicken straight into the freezer.

I went to my pantry and gathered all of my sauces and salad dressings – boom! Instant marinades! If you follow the Trim Healthy Mama Plan, you’ll just want to make sure your sauces, salsas, dressings comply with the THM guidelines.

I used balsamic salad dressing, two different kinds of salsa, an olive tapenade, and marinara sauce. If I’d had some Italian salad dressing, Italian chicken would have been a great and easy addition.

Before I got started, I set out a cutting board, kitchen shears, and quart and gallon size ziploc bags.

When I opened the box, I saw that there were four bags of chicken breasts, with ten pounds in each bag.

Here's a simple, easy way to process boneless skinless chicken breasts. I did 40 pounds of chicken in 30 minutes and made a bunch of quick freezer to crockpot meals, too!

First, I have to say that the chicken I picked up was fresh, smelled totally fine, and wasn’t slimy at all. I know most people would probably have expected that, but I was pretty skeptical. I’ve gotten bad chicken at the grocery store, and I didn’t know what I’d get from Zaycon Fresh. The chicken I picked up seemed totally fresh and in great shape, so I was pretty excited!

I opened the bags of Zaycon chicken and pulled out one piece at a time. I cut each piece of the boneless, skinless chicken in half, and filled the bags with both halves. I rely A LOT on simple side dishes to make meat stretch father, but if you have a family of big eaters you may want to add more chicken to each bag.

Here's a simple, easy way to process boneless skinless chicken breasts. I did 40 pounds of chicken in 30 minutes and made a bunch of quick freezer to crockpot meals, too!

Then I just dumped half a bottle of sauce, dressing, or salsa to each bag. You can always add water to thin the sauces out a little bit, if necessary.

It took 14 minutes to make 9 freezer to crockpot meals with this method – just cutting the chicken in half, adding it to the bag, and pouring in the sauce. I used two full bags (so 20 pounds) to make the 9 meals.

It took another 15 minutes to cut the rest of the chicken pieces in half and add it to the bags to freeze plain. I now have 9 freezer crockpot dinners, and 10 bags with unseasoned raw chicken breasts frozen and ready to thaw and cook however I’d like to.

All in all, I’m very, VERY pleased with the quality and freshness of Zaycon chicken. I’m also really happy that I was able to make so many meals in so little time. I think rounding up the sauces I had, and using kitchen shears instead of knives, saved a lot of time and energy.

Here are the shears I used, but any sharp shears will work fine (just be careful!):