One of the best ways I have found to save money (I love my Disney trips and need to save for them) is to try and buy all my staple grocery products when they are on sale.   Most sales happen every 4-6 weeks so when I find items such as chicken thighs or chicken drumsticks for $.98 a pound plus another 5% off on special store sale days I buy them in bulk.  So, I bought 20 lbs.  Sounds like quite a bit of meat but I am buying for a 6 week sales cycle.  My family will eat about 2-3 lbs per meal, remember this is bone in chicken,  so that is 7-8 meals of chicken over 6 weeks.  Not really that much when you think about it that way.

I also break the packages into smaller resealable bags and season at least half of them with different marinades.  Freeze them until the night before you are ready to use.  Place them in the refrigerator to thaw and then grill or roast the next day as you prefer.  This gives you many different options to choose from when planning your meals.

So, many of the meals over the coming weeks are going to be chicken with marinades and grilling.  It is that great time of summer when you can pull out your grill and have great simple meals.  This is the first year we have a gas grill.  I loved our charcoal grills so much but time has become the biggest factor in our life and taking the hour to light the grill, let it slowly burn down to the perfect temperature and then spreading the coals just became too much.  So, we broke in our gas grill tonight with Grilled Marinated Chicken.

Verdict:

This was a hit all around.  I loved that the grill is ready in less than 5 minutes and we could begin to cook.  The kids loved the taste of the chicken.  I doubled the recipe and cooked 5 pounds thinking I would make a spicy chicken salad with the leftovers, I was wrong.  We had enough for a lunch or two but not enough to make a big chicken salad like I was hoping for.

As you can see I served this with mashed potatoes and baby peas.   This was a hit and I may even try this marinade with a roast next time.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 lbs. chicken (I prefer thighs and drumsticks for grilling but can use slightly pounded down breasts)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Place chicken in a resealable bag.
2. Add all ingredients and move the bag around to coat all the pieces of chicken.
3. At this point you can freeze with the marinate or let sit in a refrigerator at least 1 hour up to over night before cooking.
4. Grill as you prefer.