Life is ever changing and more challenging…today our big concern is the Coronavirus COVID-19. There’s so much unknown that we face free-floating anxiety…with no way to relieve it! When everyone hit the stores for toilet tissue, chips and cooking oil (really? Why was that what they went for in my neighborhood?), I stocked up on meat that was happily on sale!
Since it’s not as likely as with weather scenarios that we would lose power, I went into overdrive so we can eat as healthy to eat as our normal diet. That’s the key right now…staying healthy. So, let’s take a look at how you can bulk buy in any situation and save dollars and sense (hahaha).
Yes, you should start with a list
If you read this, you may already know about how much meat you would normally buy at a sale price. Of course, right now, if you don’t have a good sale, you may be buying meat anyway. You do what you gotta do. But it’s also helpful to think of the kinds of recipes you might be making…particularly those things where you can freeze meat (raw or cooked) in certain quantities so you just pull out what you need.
I basically looked at my menu plans (check out how to make those here) and made a shopping list for 4 weeks worth of meals where I would normally just shop for one. My meat list came from that. (I also already had several sets of meat put back in the freezer already!)
One great hack is to know some equivalents like 3 cups of cooked chicken is a pound. Since I make several versions of chicken salad (our current favorite is Ultimate Chicken Salad – I use 3 cups of chicken but it doesn’t come close to feeding 8-10), I could figure out how much I chicken I needed for each recipe and add that number to my list.
All total, I bought 21 pounds of BLSL chicken breasts, 10.5 pounds of BLSL chicken thighs (both were 1.69/#) AND 8 pounds of 85% ground beef (at 2.99/#), 3# pork sausage, and 4# ground turkey. That’s a LOT of meat! (BTW, I use # for pound…it was the “pound sign” before it was a hashtag folks!)
What I did with ALL that meat!
- Made 25 Cuban meatballs my family quickly devoured for Sunday lunch
- Made 7 Cajun burgers (last night’s supper)
- Browned 4# ground beef for Korean Beef, Unstuffed Cabbage Roll, and Paleo Taco Skillet (froze most of that)
- Made Turkey breakfast sausage this morning
- Cooked 6# of chicken breasts in my large crockpot and 1# in the oven then chopped it all
- Froze 3 cups of it for Pineapple Salsa Chicken
- Froze 18 cups of it for Ultimate Chicken Salad, Fall Chicken Protein Salad, and Madras Chicken Salad (gotta make double of ALL our chicken salads or we fight over it!)
- Split and seasoned for Red River Chicken on the grill later (and frozen)
- Froze 2# of thighs for Chicken and Root Vegetables
- AND I’m not even finished!
More prep for storage coming up
I’ll put 2# breasts and 2# thighs in the freezer for Ranchero Chicken, 1.5# for Chicken Shawarma (heard the name at the end of the first Avengers movie and HAD to make it), 1# for Taco Chicken and Veggie Soup, 8 thighs for Crockpot Chicken Indonesian AND 6 breast pieces for Garlic Lime Chicken. I’m not kidding…that’s a LOT of meat!
And here’s the kicker…I shorted myself 1# of sausage and 1# of ground beef. I’ll need to take advantage of Sprouts Double Sale flyer Wednesday!
Lots of meat means some work now…but less later
Yes, I know, it’s tiring just seeing the list. I didn’t do it all in one day, and I found some helpers in family members. I’m just showing you it can be done. And now I can relax a little (something ALL of us need to do right now).
You may not choose to go big in this way OR you may want to have a prep party someday and do this kind of quantity with friends helping where everybody gets to share the goodies! But even a little planning and prepping can make a huge difference in your day to day expenditure of time and energy. And pair that with savings…win-win!
