How to: Make your own individually frozen chicken quarters

I buy chicken in 10lb bags.  If it is important to you to eat only white meat, free range chickens, or all certified organic foods, this post may not be useful to you.  If you would really like to trim your food budget significantly, it will.  So as said, I buy chicken in 10lb bags.  They are all dark quarters and usually that means 10 portions.  Sometimes there will be a lone thigh or leg in there to get the weight right.  I usually make 4 meals out of the meat in the bag - 2 meals where I serve the meat on the bone and 2 where I cook the meat, pick off the meat and put it in a casserole.  Publix sells the 10lb bags for $7.90 and Wal-mart for $5.90.  There are places around here where you can buy 20lbs for less per pound, but that usually means the pieces are frozen in one solid block.  As I am not throwing a huge party, this is not useful for me!

To store the chicken, I used to spend an hour packing the chicken in meal portions, but now I do it an easier way.  I create my own bag of individually frozen chicken quarters.  Here is how it works:

Step 1:  Lay out quarters on a sheet pan.  It's ok if they touch a little.  Once they are frozen you can break them apart.

Freeze the pan of chicken uncovered overnight.

The next day pop them off the pan and if necessary break them apart and store in a big plastic bag.  This is not for long term storage - I use these all in about 2 weeks.

When I thaw the meat, I skin it and can trim off extra fat if I want too.  Also, these pieces are roughly processed.  The backbone is not removed.  Sometimes there are unappetizing bits of organ still attached (I guess some people like organ meat, when I was a kid I liked the livers and the gizzards, but that just sounds icky to me now!).  All this can be trimmed off too, but it takes some practice to get the back off without damaging the meat.