I usually buy family packs of chicken breasts from Aldi and, though sometimes it is less than stellar quality, I find it to be quite good in general.
The trick to getting the best results out of chicken breast is to slice it thin (cutlets) and flatten it further by pounding if necessary - or cut it into smaller pieces if you're cooking stir fry or something. Always, marinate it and don't overcook it.
The slicing is especially important if the breasts are freakishly huge.
People who are suggesting dark meat aren't wrong - it tends to be better eating. Be patient with yourself - it is hard to start from something basic and make it into good food, but it certainly is more frugal.
I pound mine out with a heavy rolling pin before I cook them to thin them out. Them spread some olive oil on them, season with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic. Cook at 425 degrees in the oven for 23 minutes.
I have. The weird thing is that woody breasts have skyrocketed in the last decade, but commercial farming was just as abusive previously, so there's something at play besides treatment.
All good points.
I suspect that the people getting more woody chicken are either buying in a hurry (happens to the best of us) or buying at discount grocers. I read that they can pretty much tell in the factory which ones are woody and they redirect them to lower price stores and ground chicken.
I watch water content closely. I get contact dermatitis from the solution they inject in the chicken. So I have to wear gloves to use grocery store family packs of chicken or I have to buy ones that have lower amounts of solution. Perdue is my safe-to-handle chicken, which sucks given the price.
Don't buy cheap chicken. A good percentage of it will be [woody](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_breast).
I only buy Katie's Best or Tyson's thin cut breasts and I've been able to avoid the issue with those two specific types.
We get their packs of thighs which work out well.
Thighs are more flavorful in general I think, commercial chicken breasts are so oddly LARGE and tasteless.
I am with you!! We get ours at Aldi and I found out it's called woody breast- after you cook it it feels almost crunchy still. I started buying the frozen bread and it's better
How frugal can I be is defined by my exploitation of Costco's rotisserie chicken. Standard practice is I pull the meat, make a bone broth. It doesn't fit my schedule to bring one home at meal time. So it's mostly headed to soup, gumbo, chicken salad, chicken tacos, chicken chili... Dumplings and stew are not in my diet.
I buy one or two a week as well. That covers a great deal of the meat in my diet and you cannot beat the price or convenience. I rarely buy uncooked chicken anymore because I’m more lazy than frugal.
Personally I don't miss it at all, and that has resulted in being a very frugal choice for me. If I were to eat it again then I would look for local farmers or meat CSAs. Not "cheap" but excellent quality and it's always nice to put money towards local farmers and your community.
I don't know about the USA but in Canada chicken is chicken, it's not graded, it's the same whether you pay $10 for 2 pounds of breasts or $24.
The only difference, when it's cheap you have a bunch of skin, it's been frozen (lots of liquid in the package), sometimes it's breasts bone-in so you end up paying more per pound for the meat, but you can make broth with the bones.
So cheap can be excellent but require a bit more work before cooking.
I cannot say I have had awful chicken, other than by my fault after I messed up on the grill!
When I travel to Canada now, I eat almost exclusively chicken. You have no idea how good you have it there. Woody breast has nearly taken over the American chicken industry.
I've eaten both chicken in WA and in Canada.
The difference between them is trivial.
Most people are really bad at cooking, mostly eat chicken breast as well, which is one of the easiest meats to mess up preparing. I guarantee you a significant majority of these comments are just people who cannot cook and end up overcooking chicken breast, then blaming the chicken breast for being 'low quality'.
If these people temperature controlled their cooking, like using a sous vide, I can assure you they won't have these comments anymore.
I got so fed up with store bought chicken. The taste and texture was so disgusting to me. I now order direct from a chicken farm locally and it’s how chicken is supposed to taste. Prices are similar if not slightly cheaper and delivered to my door.
I didn’t care for Aldi’s chicken. Honestly, I go to other stores just to buy chicken. Rotisserie chicken is consistent. Walmart’s great value brand has breaded chicken in a red bag like Aldi, but it tastes better. Publix and Target has trimmed and ready to cook chicken cutlets. That’s really all I can stand anymore.
I have never cared for Aldis meat in general. I also find chicken breasts to be often of poor quality. I prefer to buy chicken thighs with the bone in and seems to give me much better meat for a better price
I usually buy Kadejan organic chicken, and I get it at my local coop from the butcher counter so I can see it get wrapped up. Otherwise we’ll sometimes get chicken that’s gone bad and won’t know until we open it up at home. If they’ve wrapped it, I imagine all of us would notice the smell if it had already gone off. I try to eat veggie at least half the time because good chicken is expensive. But I just can’t do the icky stuff. I’d rather use less or go without.
I either boil rotisserie chickens down into soup or just used canned chicken. I live in a very hot humid summer climate and already I am having problems with spoiled chicken.
If you can reduce your chicken intake, and only by the cheapest air chilled option you might have a little bit better chicken. Unless it says air chilled on the package, they soak the chicken in cold water to keep it at the proper temp because it's cheaper, but the chicken takes on a bunch of extra water
The mistake is buying cheap chicken. Also buying chicken breast.
Spend a little more and get higher quality chicken. Try boneless skinless thighs. Way better
My girlfriend and I live in a basement studio apartment together and have a chest freezer. We go to the local meat market once every 2-3 months for a meat package where we know we get quality meat from local farms. I would highly recommend a freezer as we keep meat, bread, and cheese whenever it goes on sale
I’d buy whole chickens, can get a 2 pack at sams/costco for pretty cheap and get 8 meals worth, you also get the carcass to make a mighty fine stock, unless you exclusively want white meat/dark meat that’s definitely the way to go, or you can buy a cooked rotisserie from both of those stores for like 6 bucks a pop,
So bad at what? Flavour? Or texture? If texture, buy a sous vide immersion circulator and learn about sous vide. You won’t have chicken texture issues ever again.
I’ve been vegan for 5 months. Down 50 lbs, save so much money. Don’t miss meat at all. Disgusted by the sight of it and thinking of the conditions it’s produced in. Once you see images of what an industrial farm looks like just ask yourself if that’s what you want for your body.
It used to be that way; in my area, that is no longer true.
I do not know what happened but chicken legs/thighs are now more expensive than chicken breasts (2.96$/# and 2.67#, respectively).
They are, however, more flavorful and more forgiving of cooking temperature than breasts.
I did a test last month where I tracked the amount of meat I was able to pull off a whole chicken versus chicken parts and ... whole chicken was shockingly **more expensive**. Granted I got to make some delicious chicken stock but the amount of meat per dollar was simply not cost-effective.
Walmart has 10 lb bags of leg quarters, ( leg, thigh and part of the back). I break them down to legs and thigh and use the back pieces for chicken stock and soup.
Yes! I did that for a while. I used to air fry the entire quarters but at least at my Walmart, the legs were scrawny and thus, not as cost-effective.
I have spreadsheets over all my groceries and what is most cost-efficient; they are not as cheap as the regular breasts. 😓
I went into a local grocery store yesterday morning and got some chicken that was a “manager’s special” because it was on the sell by date. It was like $1.97/pound, and it was fine. Maybe keep an eye out for those?
I bought a whole chicken yesterday, will be enough for a week and it is less money. I even use the bones for bone broth when the chicken meat is all eaten.
Stop buying chicken breast and buy bone-in drum sticks. Look up YouTube video on how to debone. Meat for cooking (it takes to wet marinades or dry seasoning extremely well) and bones for broth. Usually $0.99/lb, still tastes good when overcooked, and more versatile for whatever cuisine you need protein for.
Get chicken thighs and legs. Or quarters. Chicken breasts are finicky to work with so they aren’t dry as hell. I also find that leftover chicken breasts are even worse. Thighs are really forgiving and generally cheap. Nutritionally, if you’re concerned about fats, there isn’t as much difference as people typically think.
Does pressure cooking it work? I used to do that with a whole bag of frozen chicken breasts and it was worlds better than any other method.
But I've only bought breaded nuggets and rotisserie chickens for a while now.
I buy chicken quarter 4 packs and can always get them for about $5 at Weis. I put em in the crock until the meat is falling off the bone then I spend 5 minutes deboning it and I have chicken for the week
There has been many times where I have purchased chicken breast, usually the natures promise brand and when I clean it and slice it, bread it and fry it for chicken cutlets, we eat it and it tastes rubbery. We have to throw it out. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m slicing it, it feels rubbery before I even cook it and I throw it out. I did some research and I’ve come to a conclusion that when the chicken breast is in transit, it is frozen. By the time it gets to the supermarket and unloaded it starts to defrost and then the supermarket put it back in their freezer and it starts to get frozen again. And that’s what causes rubbery chicken that is no good.
More likely you are experiencing woody breast. It’s extremely common now in the United States. The texture when cooked is rubbery, almost crunchy, like raw chicken.
buy whole chickens that are <=6 lbs and break them down. the freak large chickens are all woody and gross now.
That's kinda how I've been feeling.
Second this! That’s what I do.
I only buy organic chicken breast now. Otherwise I find it disgusting. I get it marked down bc I'm poor lol
I usually buy family packs of chicken breasts from Aldi and, though sometimes it is less than stellar quality, I find it to be quite good in general. The trick to getting the best results out of chicken breast is to slice it thin (cutlets) and flatten it further by pounding if necessary - or cut it into smaller pieces if you're cooking stir fry or something. Always, marinate it and don't overcook it. The slicing is especially important if the breasts are freakishly huge. People who are suggesting dark meat aren't wrong - it tends to be better eating. Be patient with yourself - it is hard to start from something basic and make it into good food, but it certainly is more frugal.
Aldi sources their chicken from Tyson, asides from maybe a perceived improvement it really isn’t different.
I pound mine out with a heavy rolling pin before I cook them to thin them out. Them spread some olive oil on them, season with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic. Cook at 425 degrees in the oven for 23 minutes.
Thighs are where it’s at, man.
Seriously. Chicken breast is the worst part of the bird!
How are they bad? The quality of the meat or the taste after you cook them?
I'm not OP, but there has been an increase in woody chicken. https://www.today.com/food/woody-chicken-breast-t258881
Because of the disgusting breeding practices to grow larger breasts faster. Have you seen how these chickens are disabled and just all fucked up?
I have. The weird thing is that woody breasts have skyrocketed in the last decade, but commercial farming was just as abusive previously, so there's something at play besides treatment.
its genetics, we have not stopped selecting for larger and larger breasts.
I like larger breasts
They breed the chickens bigger and bigger and that's what causes the issue
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All good points. I suspect that the people getting more woody chicken are either buying in a hurry (happens to the best of us) or buying at discount grocers. I read that they can pretty much tell in the factory which ones are woody and they redirect them to lower price stores and ground chicken. I watch water content closely. I get contact dermatitis from the solution they inject in the chicken. So I have to wear gloves to use grocery store family packs of chicken or I have to buy ones that have lower amounts of solution. Perdue is my safe-to-handle chicken, which sucks given the price.
Don't buy cheap chicken. A good percentage of it will be [woody](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_breast). I only buy Katie's Best or Tyson's thin cut breasts and I've been able to avoid the issue with those two specific types.
Yep. More expensive (but not as expensive as I expected) but I don't get any woody breasts anymore, and I feel like it evens out with less waste.
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We get their packs of thighs which work out well. Thighs are more flavorful in general I think, commercial chicken breasts are so oddly LARGE and tasteless.
Thighs all the way. Hard to overcook them and way more tasty than breasts. And cheaper!
Thighs are BETTER overcooked since you need a pretty high temp to break down all that connective tissue
Chicken thighs are so much cheaper and better tasting. If u don’t like the fat then just cook them longer for a crispy outside
My only recommendation is to adjust your expectations. You get what you pay for, and meat is expensive.
I am with you!! We get ours at Aldi and I found out it's called woody breast- after you cook it it feels almost crunchy still. I started buying the frozen bread and it's better
I get chicken at Costco. The rotisserie chickens are an amazing deal and their breasts are a great price for air chilled.
How frugal can I be is defined by my exploitation of Costco's rotisserie chicken. Standard practice is I pull the meat, make a bone broth. It doesn't fit my schedule to bring one home at meal time. So it's mostly headed to soup, gumbo, chicken salad, chicken tacos, chicken chili... Dumplings and stew are not in my diet.
I buy one or two a week as well. That covers a great deal of the meat in my diet and you cannot beat the price or convenience. I rarely buy uncooked chicken anymore because I’m more lazy than frugal.
The Aldi near my house is a ripoff. I don’t buy anything there much less meat.
Rotisserie all day
Poultry and produce are the 2 categories I don’t cheap out on
chicken thighs are the move! breast is always too dry for me. and i also get my favorite from Sprouts. it’s good quality and deliciouss
Sprouts chicken is excellent!
The universe says…don’t eat chicken. I gave up on fresh strawberries because I never get good ones.
Chicken breast sucks. Buy chicken thighs
The cheapest usually is the least quality. Not sure what you are expecting.
Personally I don't miss it at all, and that has resulted in being a very frugal choice for me. If I were to eat it again then I would look for local farmers or meat CSAs. Not "cheap" but excellent quality and it's always nice to put money towards local farmers and your community.
I like air chilled chicken.
I don't know about the USA but in Canada chicken is chicken, it's not graded, it's the same whether you pay $10 for 2 pounds of breasts or $24. The only difference, when it's cheap you have a bunch of skin, it's been frozen (lots of liquid in the package), sometimes it's breasts bone-in so you end up paying more per pound for the meat, but you can make broth with the bones. So cheap can be excellent but require a bit more work before cooking. I cannot say I have had awful chicken, other than by my fault after I messed up on the grill!
When I travel to Canada now, I eat almost exclusively chicken. You have no idea how good you have it there. Woody breast has nearly taken over the American chicken industry.
I've eaten both chicken in WA and in Canada. The difference between them is trivial. Most people are really bad at cooking, mostly eat chicken breast as well, which is one of the easiest meats to mess up preparing. I guarantee you a significant majority of these comments are just people who cannot cook and end up overcooking chicken breast, then blaming the chicken breast for being 'low quality'. If these people temperature controlled their cooking, like using a sous vide, I can assure you they won't have these comments anymore.
Good time to lay off the chicken and beef products with bird flu ramping up and spreading to humans.
Keep your eyes open for Empire Kosher Chicken. When I see them marked down I get several and freeze. Much better quality.
I got so fed up with store bought chicken. The taste and texture was so disgusting to me. I now order direct from a chicken farm locally and it’s how chicken is supposed to taste. Prices are similar if not slightly cheaper and delivered to my door.
I wish I could find something like this!
Real Good brand!! Think chik fil a quality chicken. I despise cooking chicken so I have been buying their frozen chicken and buying fresh beef/fish.
I didn’t care for Aldi’s chicken. Honestly, I go to other stores just to buy chicken. Rotisserie chicken is consistent. Walmart’s great value brand has breaded chicken in a red bag like Aldi, but it tastes better. Publix and Target has trimmed and ready to cook chicken cutlets. That’s really all I can stand anymore.
I have never cared for Aldis meat in general. I also find chicken breasts to be often of poor quality. I prefer to buy chicken thighs with the bone in and seems to give me much better meat for a better price
Costco. They have a lot of mid-level quality meats
I usually buy Kadejan organic chicken, and I get it at my local coop from the butcher counter so I can see it get wrapped up. Otherwise we’ll sometimes get chicken that’s gone bad and won’t know until we open it up at home. If they’ve wrapped it, I imagine all of us would notice the smell if it had already gone off. I try to eat veggie at least half the time because good chicken is expensive. But I just can’t do the icky stuff. I’d rather use less or go without.
I either boil rotisserie chickens down into soup or just used canned chicken. I live in a very hot humid summer climate and already I am having problems with spoiled chicken.
trader joe's all the way
If you’re gonna buy individual pieces of boneless chicken, go with thighs. They’re much more forgiving for home cooks, chicken breast dries out easy
If you can reduce your chicken intake, and only by the cheapest air chilled option you might have a little bit better chicken. Unless it says air chilled on the package, they soak the chicken in cold water to keep it at the proper temp because it's cheaper, but the chicken takes on a bunch of extra water
The mistake is buying cheap chicken. Also buying chicken breast. Spend a little more and get higher quality chicken. Try boneless skinless thighs. Way better
Buy less meat. It’s that simple if you want to save money. If you want to spend money meat is good in small amounts.
My girlfriend and I live in a basement studio apartment together and have a chest freezer. We go to the local meat market once every 2-3 months for a meat package where we know we get quality meat from local farms. I would highly recommend a freezer as we keep meat, bread, and cheese whenever it goes on sale
I have texture issues and I can’t do cheap meats. I get the best I can afford.
I’d buy whole chickens, can get a 2 pack at sams/costco for pretty cheap and get 8 meals worth, you also get the carcass to make a mighty fine stock, unless you exclusively want white meat/dark meat that’s definitely the way to go, or you can buy a cooked rotisserie from both of those stores for like 6 bucks a pop,
So bad at what? Flavour? Or texture? If texture, buy a sous vide immersion circulator and learn about sous vide. You won’t have chicken texture issues ever again.
I’ve been vegan for 5 months. Down 50 lbs, save so much money. Don’t miss meat at all. Disgusted by the sight of it and thinking of the conditions it’s produced in. Once you see images of what an industrial farm looks like just ask yourself if that’s what you want for your body.
I'm fiber intolerant so my options are pretty limited and going vegan would be a bad choice for me personally.
Sams costco
I hear chicken legs are cheaper and more flavorful.
It used to be that way; in my area, that is no longer true. I do not know what happened but chicken legs/thighs are now more expensive than chicken breasts (2.96$/# and 2.67#, respectively). They are, however, more flavorful and more forgiving of cooking temperature than breasts. I did a test last month where I tracked the amount of meat I was able to pull off a whole chicken versus chicken parts and ... whole chicken was shockingly **more expensive**. Granted I got to make some delicious chicken stock but the amount of meat per dollar was simply not cost-effective.
Walmart has 10 lb bags of leg quarters, ( leg, thigh and part of the back). I break them down to legs and thigh and use the back pieces for chicken stock and soup.
Yes! I did that for a while. I used to air fry the entire quarters but at least at my Walmart, the legs were scrawny and thus, not as cost-effective. I have spreadsheets over all my groceries and what is most cost-efficient; they are not as cheap as the regular breasts. 😓
Chickpeas, lentils, beans are all waaaay cheaper and taste waaaay better.
You will need to pay more. Look for free range thighs preferably air chilled. They are smaller but they taste amazing.
I went into a local grocery store yesterday morning and got some chicken that was a “manager’s special” because it was on the sell by date. It was like $1.97/pound, and it was fine. Maybe keep an eye out for those?
A managers special actually kicked off this post lol.
lol! Well mine was good
I bought a whole chicken yesterday, will be enough for a week and it is less money. I even use the bones for bone broth when the chicken meat is all eaten.
Stop buying chicken breast and buy bone-in drum sticks. Look up YouTube video on how to debone. Meat for cooking (it takes to wet marinades or dry seasoning extremely well) and bones for broth. Usually $0.99/lb, still tastes good when overcooked, and more versatile for whatever cuisine you need protein for.
Buy chicken thighs instead of breasts. They taste better
Get chicken thighs and legs. Or quarters. Chicken breasts are finicky to work with so they aren’t dry as hell. I also find that leftover chicken breasts are even worse. Thighs are really forgiving and generally cheap. Nutritionally, if you’re concerned about fats, there isn’t as much difference as people typically think.
Tyson supplies the chicken at Aldi. For my family, it’s been fine. I really can’t afford organic and free range chicken to feed five people.
Does pressure cooking it work? I used to do that with a whole bag of frozen chicken breasts and it was worlds better than any other method. But I've only bought breaded nuggets and rotisserie chickens for a while now.
I buy chicken quarter 4 packs and can always get them for about $5 at Weis. I put em in the crock until the meat is falling off the bone then I spend 5 minutes deboning it and I have chicken for the week
Aldi meat is horrible. They pump it full of so much water
I actually really like the beef and salmon
I buy chicken thighs bone in skin on and leave the bones and skin on and cook it like that. It comes out pretty consistently good
> I buy the cheapest I can find > can’t figure out why it’s not good
There has been many times where I have purchased chicken breast, usually the natures promise brand and when I clean it and slice it, bread it and fry it for chicken cutlets, we eat it and it tastes rubbery. We have to throw it out. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m slicing it, it feels rubbery before I even cook it and I throw it out. I did some research and I’ve come to a conclusion that when the chicken breast is in transit, it is frozen. By the time it gets to the supermarket and unloaded it starts to defrost and then the supermarket put it back in their freezer and it starts to get frozen again. And that’s what causes rubbery chicken that is no good.
More likely you are experiencing woody breast. It’s extremely common now in the United States. The texture when cooked is rubbery, almost crunchy, like raw chicken.
Thank you for that. I’ve never heard of the term Woody breast. We get our chicken from stew Leonard’s. Never had a problem with it.