How to Quickly Shred Chicken with a Mixer

I have been so bad about taking photos while cooking lately. I've made lots of yummy things too, but for some reason photographing them has not been on the top of my mind.So instead of sharing a full recipe today, I am going to share a tip. It's so simple that it will change your life (okay, maybe a bit dramatic, but I think it's awesome)! I'm going to show you how to cook and shred a frozen chicken breast in 25 minutes. Yep, now you can get home from work and get a meal on the table without having to preplan and fuss too much.

First, I do a little prep work when I purchase my chicken. I buy fresh chicken breasts and spend 20 minutes cutting the fat off of all of them at once. When that's done, I put each breast in a separate plastic baggie and then load them all into one big gallon size bag before freezing them. This saves you from having to thaw the breast to cut off the fat or picking the fat off after cooking. And since I do them all at once, there is only one messy clean up job.Now that we're ready to cook, let's move on...Second, place one frozen chicken breast into a sauce pan and fill it with water. Boil the frozen chicken breast for 20 minutes on medium heat - more than a simmer, but not enough to splash water all over your stove.Third, when the chicken is cooked through, pour some of the hot water into your stand mixer bowl to heat it up. (You can skip this step if you are planning to heat up your chicken again).Finally, empty the bowl and place the warm chicken at the bottom. Using the paddle attachment, turn on the mixer to 1 or 2. After 30 seconds you will have perfectly shredded chicken!And that's how you shred chicken with a mixer so you can get dinner on the table, lickety-split.I have found that using this method of shredding chicken produces finer "strings" so the meat actually goes farther. I know it's the same amount, but it feels like there is more meat than when I used to shred chicken with two forks or my fingers. This means that I can get away with fixing one chicken breast for my husband and I instead of two. So not only is it super simple, but it's cost effective. Score!