maxwasatch
Newbie
Costco and Sam's seem to trade off on best prices for pork butt. Around here anyway. Redneck cousin who knows ranchers helps with beef.
had to join after read your post there mc. there is almost no waste on a chicken providing you know what to do with it.....trick is save the bones, neck & giblets...boil em and make stock...its way better than a can. pre-smoked bones....delicious. i make my whole family save turkey carcass' and hambones...after i smoke a round of meat i go to the freezer and pull out a carcass or a bone or two and let it smoke an hour or so....and then into a stock potdollar for dollar you cant beat a sale on pork butt. chicken is great too because at around $5 a chicken it is pretty economical. and they are relatively quick to smoke. but there is also a lot of waste in a chicken with bones and carcass and such. for my money, pork butt would be the way i would go. even though it is more expensive than chicken, theres very little waste involved. and having 6-8 pounds of meat in your fridge is pretty nice too :)
when i do chickens i usually do like 2-4 at a time. i eat one and pull the others and freeze. i put them in chicken spaghetti, gumbo, jambalaya, soups, stews, chili. hell it probably even tastes good on cereal.
trash to treasure...wings were trash......now they are wow.......who would have thought........add a wing sauce.........now that said.........add your own flavor to what you want to cook..............it will work out great.. or remember theTry watching for sales on chicken pieces like quarters, thighs, legs, bone-in skin-on breasts, etc. You can bag them and freeze them in small batches for easier portioning.
Normally I'd also mention wings but in the last 5 years their popularity has grown 100 fold, and they are fairly pricey now. Kind of ironic for a meat that used to be thrown/given away by butchers.