On Monday I picked up my bulk order of chicken breasts. Homemade tacos are on the menu at least once a week around here so I went ahead filled my 2 favorite crock pots with 8 chicken breasts each and added a batch of my DIY Taco Seasoning and let them cook on high for about 4 hours.
Once the chicken was done cooking I let it cool a little bit and then tossed the chicken breasts {4 at a time} into my KitchenAid mixing bowl and added the paddle attachment.
I turned the mixer on low and let the paddle work it’s magic and about 20 seconds later I had a bowl full of shredded chicken without even having to get my hands dirty.
After shredding the chicken, I weighed half pound portions of seasoned chicken and placed them in freezer bags. Now I have plenty meat cooked and ready to go for the next 16 tacos nights.
Talk about a pretty awesome time saver!
Have you ever shredded your chicken in your mixer before? Pretty cool huh?
Keep it simple,
~Mavis
madam chow says
Oh my word, what a great tip!
Tanya says
Just note that this only works when the chicken is very warm or hot. Cld chicken turns into some kind of poultry paste (Don’t ask how I know this 😉 )
Brenda says
Ahh, I just found out the hard way about cold chicken! I picked up my Zaycon chicken on Saturday and roasted about 10 lbs of it, but got lazy and tossed it into the fridge when it was cooked. I found out pretty quickly on Sunday that the mixer trick doesn’t work too well with cold chicken, I had pieces flying all over the place and well, mush. Lesson learned!
Missy says
Best pinterest tip I’ve ever picked up. Always shred my chicken like this now!
Randi says
Zaycon pick up was today for me, then Fred Meyer for other fixings and I too will be shredding chicken tonight!! Thanks for the reminder!!
Evelyn says
What a great time saver !!!I do chicken breasts in the crock weekly also.Ours are for bar-be-que sammie’s and quesadilla’s.You are right the worst part is shredding the chicken. Thank-you Mavis for another great tech tip 🙂
The Coach Potato says
This is an excellent idea. I’ll have to try it.
Amy P says
I’ve never heard of Zaycon before but you can bet that I signed up for an account as soon as I figured out what it was. I didn’t know sites like this existed. What else do you do with your 40lb box?
Mavis says
Hi Amy, I’m working on typing up a few recipes. 🙂
Jen J says
I got my first Zaycon order this week and wowza! Would love to see those recipes shared, Mavis 🙂
randi says
Mavis- I was wondering if you can share your crock pot/taco seasoning ‘recipe’. do you add water with the chicken and taco seasoning or just rub the chicken breasts before you put them in the crock pot.
I had (gasp!) pre-packaged taco seasoning packets and put those in with my chicken breasts after I had stirred the seasoning into some water.
4 hours and much stand mixer shredding later the flavor of the chicken was somewhat diluted.
Thanks-
Heather T. says
Well thank you Miss Mavis, I have 80lbs coming Mon, since you last post about Zaycon, I can’t wait to get it, I have a master list of recipes to use 56 breast up, yippie and I plan to also cook some in the slow cooker for shredded chicken.
Black bean and corn salsa chicken
BBQ cranberry chicken
Sweet teriyaki chicken
Honey chicken
South western chicken
chicken supreme
Quick and easy chinese chicken
BBQ chicken for buns
Chicken Naranja
Cashew chicken
Artichoke chicken and olives
Honey-ginger chicken
and Adobe Chicken So excited to get my 2 boxes, I am actually picking up 7 boxes as its a 2 hour drive and I am splitting gas costs with others and I am doing the picking up.
Mavis says
Wow! 7 boxes. Cool beans that only one of you has to pick it all up. Have making all those recipes, they sound yummy!
Helen in Meridian says
I have shredded my chicken this way for a few months now. I read about the mixer shredding a while ago on one of the websites. I first tried shredding it with the whisk attachment, and it was a giant ball, then I got smart and used the paddle attachment.
Helen in Meridian says
Will .5 lb pkg of shredded chicken feed all 4 of you tacos for the night?
Mavis says
Yes! We like to add black beans and rice to our tacos. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot of meat but but it works out perfectly for about 8 soft tacos.
Nicki says
This worked like a house on fire! Thanks so much for the fabulous suggestion!