Is it more cost effective to buy a whole chicken?
For the last 2 years the price of chicken breasts, drumsticks, wings, and thighs has been steadily climbing. At one point I switched from buying fresh chicken to frozen chicken to save a little money, but the cost of frozen chicken has increased a lot too lately.
One thing that I have noticed recently is that the price of whole chickens has stayed relatively low. It has increased a little, but not as much as individual chicken pieces has increased. This makes me wonder if it is more cost efficient to buy whole chickens instead of the individual cuts that are so expensive. Let’s explore the numbers and see if this is a good way to save money!
Is it better value to buy a whole chicken?
To see if buying a whole chicken is a better value, let’s compare the pricing of whole chickens versus individual cuts. I took the price of whole chickens from 3 different stores: Walmart ($1.24), Ingles ($1.58), and Kroger ($1.49) and figured out the average price of a whole chicken is about $1.43 a pound.
| Type of Chicken | Price | Amount in Package |
| Whole Chicken | $1.43 a pound | about 5 pounds total $7.15 |
| Chicken Breasts | $11.78 | 5 breasts ($2.35 each) |
| Chicken Drumsticks | $7.88 (on sale) | 14 drumsticks ($0.56 each) |
| Chicken Thighs | $9.92 (on sale) | 9 thighs ($1.10 each) |
| Chicken Wings | $18.66 | 17 wings ($1.09 each) |
Next, I determined that buying individual chicken cuts was the cheapest at Kroger, so I used their pricing for breasts, drumsticks, thighs, and wings. I also counted the average amount of individual pieces in their packaging to determine a price per item.
| Whole Chicken priced per piece | Cost |
| Chicken Breasts x2 ($2.35 ea) | $4.70 |
| Chicken Drumsticks x2 ($0.56 ea) | $1.12 |
| Chicken Thighs x2 ($1.10 ea) | $2.20 |
| Chicken Wings x2 ($1.09 ea) | $2.18 |
| Total: | $10.20 |
Finally, I priced out the whole chicken that you cut up yourself, and what those pieces would normally retail for at the Kroger prices because those were the cheapest.
Based on this analysis, you can buy a whole chicken for about $7.15 and if you break it down yourself those individual pieces would retail for $10.20. That means by doing the work yourself, you can save an average of $3.05 per chicken. That is a 30% savings on chicken by cutting it yourself!
Why is whole chicken so cheap?
Whole chickens are one of the cheapest meats per pound that you can buy because it is basically untouched. A butcher was not needed to break down the chicken, so the labor cost is less.
Every time a butcher or processing plant has to make a cut to a chicken the price goes up to cover the cost of labor and time.
This is why boneless and skinless thighs are way more expensive than bone in thighs for chicken. When you remove the bone and skin, you also remove waste weight so your overall price goes up due to less waste in the product.
All you need to breakdown a chicken yourself is a cutting board, a sharp chef’s knife, and a little time. If you are not familiar with how to breakdown a chicken, check out some YouTube videos.
It’s actually very easy to breakdown a chicken and typically can be done in a small amount of time. On average it takes me about 20-30 minutes to breakdown one chicken and that is from start to clean up.
Is it cheaper to break down a chicken?
It is absolutely cheaper to breakdown your own chicken! The savings is very significant too compared to average retail prices and sales prices.
If you are a family of 4, I would recommend buying 2-3 chickens at a time so when you break it down you will have more individual cuts to work with.
By buying one chicken, you will only end up with 2 breasts, 2 legs, 2 thighs, and 2 wings. This will be enough for probably 2-3 meals.
It would be more cost efficient and have more meal planning options, to buy multiple chickens. This way you would end up with 6-8 each of breasts, legs, drumsticks, and wings.
If you only want to buy 1 chicken, you can bake or roast the chicken for dinner one night. Then any leftover chicken can be pulled and used for 1-2 more meals for other nights. I think $7.15 for meat for 3 nights is a great bargain!
Is boneless chicken more expensive?
Boneless chicken breasts and boneless thighs are the most expensive parts of a chicken to buy individually. This goes back to the waste factor.
When you buy boneless breasts or thighs you will have a little bit of fat to trim, but for the most part you are using every part of the chicken pieces in the package.
You can also blame the packaging costs as well. A whole chicken is typically placed into a vacuum sealed bag and individual chicken pieces are placed on a Styrofoam plate and then wrapped in plastic.
Whenever a company has to use more packaging, that cost is passed along to the consumer. The more packaging the more the cost.
Look at individual packs of chips sold in a box of 12 bags and see the cost difference between buying 3 large bags of chips. The box of smaller bags has more packaging with 12 small bags plus the box, so the pricing is higher per ounce of chips compared to buying a large bag of chips.
Why will you save money if you buy a whole chicken?
Not only does buying a whole chicken save you a ton of money versus buying individual pieces, but you also get to control your portioning.
Over the past couple of years, I have had to start cutting my chicken breasts in half long ways because they are just so large. I rarely would eat an entire chicken breast in one meal by myself and it takes longer to cook the bigger breasts.
As an added bonus, you also get lots and lots of chicken bones! This is basically free chicken broth or stock that you would normally pay for to make soups and stews. A 32oz carton of chicken broth runs about $2.50 and I can easily make a gallon of broth from a couple of chickens. That is an additional $10 of savings.
Chicken broth that you buy from the grocery store has a huge amount of sodium added in order to increase the shelf life. When you make chicken broth at home you can cut the sodium in the broth by 95%!
After I break down a couple of chickens, I will add the chicken bones to a stock pot with water, celery, carrots, onions, and seasonings. You let this simmer on low to medium heat for a couple of hours.
Once the broth is ready and cooled, you can then freeze the broth in ice cube trays or larger containers to use later. It is so convenient to just grab some chicken broth cubes while I am making a rice dish or any other dish that needs broth.
Overall buying whole chickens is more cost efficient than buying individual chicken cuts at the grocery store. In this instance, it comes down to saving money or saving time.
Yes, it takes time to breakdown a chicken yourself, but the savings is huge at about 30% over precut pieces. If you were to use a couple hours on a weekend to breakdown a few chickens, you could have all your chicken meat ready for the next few weeks and save a good amount on your grocery budget.
If you don’t have the time to breakdown chickens, then you will have to pay for the convenience to have the chicken precut for you.
For more DIY options to save money, check out “Is shredding your own cheese cheaper?” and “Is it cheaper to make your own Whipped Cream?“
