Freezer Meals: Chicken

This week my local grocery store has chicken leg quarters on sale for $.59 per pound.  I usually buy the big 10 pound bags, and freeze them.  I realized that thawing the bags whole was a disaster!  So I started to separate them into individual meal portions.  I'm a fan of freezer cooking, so I decided to start making meals as I portioned them (duh, why didn't I think of that before?).  Unless you want a whole leg quarter (the thigh and leg combined), then you're going to have to separate the thigh from the leg.  Once you butcher your chicken, you will have thighs for certain meals, and legs for other meals.  This is what was on sale, so that is what I am using.

Here are the freezer meals I am going to make with my chicken:

Honey Chicken
Hawaiian Chicken
Cafe Rio Chicken
French Chicken
Maple Dijon Chicken
Sweet and Sour Chicken
Pecan Stuffed Chicken (instead of using breasts for this recipe, I pounded out thighs and rolled them, securing them with toothpicks.  Try not to poke your freezer bags with them.)

After I butcher my chicken and cut up my veggies, I had lots of chicken bones and veggie scraps.  I made up 8 cups of chicken stock to freeze also.

Shopping List: 

Chicken – 4  10-pound bags

Garlic

Red bell peppers

Onions (keep scraps)

2 cans of cranberry sauce

1 bottle French dressing

1 bottle Catalina dressing

3 boxes onion soup mix

Lemon (for lemon juice)

Celery (keep scraps)

1 pack of dry ranch dressing

Things I already have on hand (but you might need to get):

Honey

Ginger

Soy Sauce

Ketchup

Pineapple juice (from canned pineapple rings)

1 can of pineapple rings

Cornstarch

Butter

Salt & Pepper

Parsley flakes

Pecans (I had some in the freezer from when I made granola)

Italian dressing

Red wine vinegar

Maple syrup

Dijon mustard

Cumin

Chili powder

Chicken broth (made homemade)

For later (when you prepare your meals):

Whole wheat buns or lettuce to make wraps

Provolone cheese

Bread (for toast)