Why You Should Shred Your Own Chicken Instead Of Buying It At The Store

There are some delicious recipes out there that call for shredded chicken: quesadillas, tacos, salads, soups, and so on. To make things easy for yourself, it's definitely tempting to buy pre-shredded chicken at the grocery store. But, there's a key reason that you should shred your own.

If you shred your own chicken at home, you can control what type of chicken you want: white meat, dark meat, or even a mix of the two. Plus, you'll save money by buying whole pieces of chicken and shredding it yourself, rather than opting for a package that is already shredded for you. Finally, if you make it yourself, you know exactly what is going into it, health-wise, whereas a pre-made package may contain more sodium and fat, or could be overly processed.

Luckily, it's really quite simple to shred your own chicken. And there are a few different methods for you to choose from.

The most straightforward method to shred chicken is to simply use your hands to tear apart the chicken — this gives you a lot of control in making sure that the pieces are the size that you desire. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, you can use two forks to shred the chicken.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you prefer using kitchen appliances for something like this, you have a couple of options. Firstly, you could use a food processor for a hands-free chicken shredding method; using the paddle attachment, your chicken will be shredded within minutes and with barely any work involved. You could also use either a stand mixer or a hand mixer, which will produce results just as good as the food processor, just with slightly more work on your part required.