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I roasted a chicken a couple of weeks ago and did a lot with it over the span of a week. I thought I would share what I did in case it gives you some ideas for how to stretch your time and money.
Now I’m the only one eating meat in my house so my chicken goes much farther than maybe it would in a family of four. However, if you have a larger family, you can maximize your time and work by making an extra chicken when you make the first. It’s not much extra prep, and you are already heating up the oven so why not cook two at the same time?
Likewise, if you are cooking for one, like me, you can freeze some of the chicken for a future meal if you can’t eat that much chicken in one week. I would freeze it in one cup portions so you can quickly grab some for a meal or recipe. A vacuum sealer for food works really well for this as it keeps the leftovers from get frost bitten. Even a single girl like me can take advantage of the cost savings with family-size packages of meat by breaking it down into smaller portions and freezing it.
I like to spatchcock my chicken. Spatchcock is just a fancier way of saying butterfly. I’ve heard that it means something entirely different in Australia, but here in the U.S., it means butterfly. Many U.S. butchers will do this for you. Just ask nicely and make sure they give you the back bone for your broth/bone bag.
A good pair of kitchen shears will get the job done as well. I found a pair of Messermeister 8-inch take-apart kitchen scissors on Amazon a few years ago that were less than $20. They are the best kitchen scissors and cut right through the back of a chicken. A turkey takes a bit more work, but they get that job done, too. I like that you can take them apart for cleaning and sharpening. It makes me feel better about using them to cut up a raw chicken.
Like I said, I like to spatchcock my chicken. It cooks more evenly and faster when it is butterflied. I do this the day before and dry brine it. I season it up with salt and herbs the night before then pop it in the oven when I get home from work. See my Yumtastic Chicken recipe here. This makes for the crispiest skin ever. In fact, I often eat the skin off the entire bird when I break it down for leftovers. I mean, it’s never going to be as yumtastic as it is right out of the oven so why not?
I do recommend that you take the meat off the bone if you plan to use it for leftovers. The kitchen is already a bit of a mess from cooking and carving up the chicken so there is no reason not to finish prepping the leftovers. It’s much easier to eat leftover chicken at work when you aren’t fighting with the bones. Plus, the bones go right into the bone bag in the freezer for broth later. By the way, I also save my veggie bits, ends of onions, carrots, etc., in another bag to use when I make broth.
So what did I do with my chicken? Well, I ate off of it the night I made it and stripped the meat off the bones for lunches that week. Later that week, I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and made broth with the bones, then soup all that weekend with some of the leftover meat, random stuff in the fridge, and the broth. Here you see I sliced up a sausage link to add to the soup along with whatever veggies I had on hand and a crap-ton of garlic.
I took some to work several days to top salads I grabbed from the cafeteria along with my Zesty Italian Dressing.
And then I used some in the Buffalo Chicken Egg Muffins from The 21-Day Sugar Detox guidebook by Diane Sanfilippo. I had some leftover red bell pepper from that soup I made that needed using so I added that to my egg muffins.
And there you have it. Personally, I like cooking once and eating off of it several times throughout the week. It saves me time and money in the long run. Other ideas for leftover chicken include lettuce wraps, tacos, casseroles, you name it.
What to do if you get to a point where you just can’t eat another bite of chicken? Well, if you anticipate that happening, freeze some of it right away. Your future self will thank you. If it is up against its expiration date and needs using, add it to the broth bag in the freezer. It will add flavor to your broth, and you can feel less guilty about not eating that last hunk of chicken breast as it will still have use later.
