Money Savers: Making Many Meals From Whole Chickens

In this economy it is very important for everyone to be a little frugal. In any economy it is important to save, cut waste, etc. Today's frugal tip is on how to save money and reduce waste on food preparation by buying whole chickens instead of chicken parts. I hypothesized that if you buy a whole chicken you will get enough breast meat that with the price of boneless, skinless chicken breast, the remainder will be free. Let's look at my results and see if my hypothesis is correct.

I bought three whole birds. I then cut off the legs and wings and set them aside to make BBQ. I sliced off the breasts and set them aside for chicken parm and I pulled out the giblets for fried giblets. Everything else, the neck, ribs and back were tossed into a pan to make stock. I also gave a few scraps to the dog. I could use all the scraps as raw dog food, but have not spend enough time studying raw diet to know what I can and cannot give him.

Below is a chart of the birds. It shows the price of the bird, the weight of the bird, and the weight of the breast meat I got off. The first bird I did not get all the breast meat off, because I was still learning, so I might have gotten more breast meat had I been a little better bird hacker.

Now, what does this little table tell us. I had hypothesized that the breast weight would be enough that the cost of the bird would be covered by the value of the breasts. Boneless skinless chicken breasts from the same brand were $4.99. We ended up with 3.25 lbs of breasts, so that is worth $16.22. That did not quite make the $16.95 I spent on the three birds, but close. I also might have ended up with the extra 73 cents worth of meat had I been a better cutter in the first bird. Despite that, look in the picture to see how much more bird I got for that 73 cents!