How Many Meals From One Roast Chicken?

[weinoo]

Not that this is a contest or anything, but I'm wondering how many meals you can stretch one roast chicken into? Sandwiches, salads, soups, etc. etc.

 

I started by writing a blog post about it, but I lied in the title of said blog post...

 

One Chicken.17 Meals.

 

Of course, I guess it depends on how many people you're feeding - in this case, it's Significant Eater and me.

 

I've also started seeking out high-quality, fresh-killed birds; I find they make quite a difference and will report what I've found out about very soon. Though this isn't one of those, it's a nice Bell & Evans organic, air-chilled bird.

Edited March 17, 2016 by weinoo (log)

[Martin Fisher]

Game Hen, Broiler, Fryer, Roaster, Stewing Chicken, Cock/Rooster or Capon?

A couple to a few meals if 'chicken' is the the primary 'ingredient'......dozens if it's not.

Edited March 17, 2016 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[IndyRob]

I'd say the baseline is 4 servings per bird in simple roast chicken form.

 

Of course, I'd like to game the question in a number of ways (including not killing the damn thing and letting it reproduce), but I'd say 3oz of meat is required in anything (casserole, risotto, salad, sandwich, etc.) for a proper serving of chicken-something.

Edited March 17, 2016 by IndyRob (log)

[Deryn]

My dog would say only 1. I would say, if not feeding said dog, I could get 4 or more but that is only one person and I would not use much at any given meal.

[kayb]

From a 3 1/2 pound or so fryer (organic, from the farm, whole), I'll get a minimum of two. Sometimes two will be it, if the first one is for four people as opposed to the usual two at my house. If it's two all the way, I may get four or so; one of sliced roast chicken, and the rest "chicken something." I have two leg quarters from one we had for Sunday dinner, and that's going in a chicken and mushroom risotto tomorrow or Saturday. Will probably produce enough risotto for us for a meal, and significant leftovers that might recycle as arancini, or just reheated risotto.

 

[sartoric]

I also feed a significant eater.

From a 1.5 kg organic bird, I'd usually get at least 23 meals. We both like the leg and thigh when freshly roasted, part of the breast might end up in chicken pies, or noodle soup, or a nachos sauce, or Caesar salad, or fried rice, or curry sauce, or ensalada Mixta, or sandwiches.  Bones etc go into the next stock.

 

I also lied on the numbers ! Maybe 4 is closer...

Like your blog.

[weinoo]

5 hours ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

Game Hen, Broiler, Fryer, Roaster, Stewing Chicken, Cock/Rooster or Capon?

A couple to a few meals if 'chicken' is the the primary 'ingredient'......dozens if it's not.

Let's limit it to broiler/fryer or roaster. I don't consider a game hen or a capon a "chicken" though it may have started out as one, but that's just me.

 

The big thing in NYC restaurants (i'm predicting), is a proliferation of older (like 90 days to market vs. 50), free-range, high-quality birds, such as the Sasso. The new restaurant Le Coq Rico is showing a number of varieties on its menu.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I can really stretch a chicken if necessary. I always save the bones, fat and drippings for stock and gravy. I make soups, gravies, chicken tetrazzini, sandwiches, salads, tacos, enchiladas, burritos, nachos, arroz con pollo, stir fries, fried rice, chicken divan, chicken pot pie, chicken with fluffy herb dumplings, and many other dishes. It's very versatile, and if need be, can be used as an accent and make many meals.

 

Seventeen or 23 might be an exaggeration, but the husband and I have eaten dinner on one (almost 7 pound supermarket) chicken for about a week at times. I love free-range chicken too. It's like chicken perfume compared to the bland mainstream variety, but when I'm worried about stretching it for many meals, it's just not in the budget.

 

It helps that I don't like a lot of meat anyway. I actually pick out excess (to me) chicken from chicken noodle soup and other dishes and put it in his serving.

 

I just love homemade stocks and gravies, and have spoiled myself to the point I'd rather do without than get by with commercial gravies. Whenever I roast a chicken, I always freeze the drippings after loosening any fond in the pan with a little boiling water so I have small containers I can make real gravy from in the freezer if I'm not going to use it right away. I serve the chicken deboned so I can freeze the bones for stock because I don't like the idea of anyone gnawing on them first. I'm sure it would be safe after all the simmering, but it still grosses me out. 

[ChrisZ]

In my case it's a regular 3, regular meaning we probably have roast chicken about once a fortnight and we always get 3 meals out of it.  

 

As soon as we've finished meal 1 (the traditional roast) I boil up the bones & wings for stock.  That becomes risotto (meal 2). There's usually a chicken breast left over which becomes either a sandwich or even an omelette a few days later.

[gulfporter]

Once a month, I buy either a rotis chicken (Costco is our fave) or a whole smoked chicken from our local bbq joint.  

Two of us, we always eat the chicken 'straight' for our first meal with either slaw, salad or an ear of corn on the side.  We each have a wing, I eat a thigh and my partner eats 1/2 a breast.  

After that, we remove the meat from the carcass and have a series of 4 more meals of the chicken, either as sandwiches, in wraps, over salad (usually with an Asian bent).  

 

So for us two, 5 meals (or 10 servings) of a whole chicken.  

[ElainaA]

I buy a roasting chicken about once a month. Like most posters here, the first meal is simply roast chicken with potatoes and a veg or salad. I can usually get 2 more dinners - usually a pasta with chicken, mushrooms, peppers and lots of garlic, maybe a risotto, in a salad in warm weather, or shredded and mixed with lots of onions, tomato, cumin and chili and put over rice. Plus there is at least one lunch for each of us (my husband and myself). Then the bones and wing tips make stock - often frozen to use for risotto with the leftovers of the next chicken.

 

When she was about 12 one of my nieces wrote an essay for school about how her mother (my sister - then a divorced mother of 4 children) could make one chicken feed the family for a full week starting with small portions of roast chicken and ending with "soup" - stock made from the bones with some noodles cooked in it. I think she only stretched the truth a very small bit. 

[Jaymes]

7 hours ago, ElainaA said:

I buy a roasting chicken about once a month. Like most posters here, the first meal is simply roast chicken with potatoes and a veg or salad. I can usually get 2 more dinners - usually a pasta with chicken, mushrooms, peppers and lots of garlic, maybe a risotto, in a salad in warm weather, or shredded and mixed with lots of onions, tomato, cumin and chili and put over rice. Plus there is at least one lunch for each of us (my husband and myself). Then the bones and wing tips make stock - often frozen to use for risotto with the leftovers of the next chicken.

 

When she was about 12 one of my nieces wrote an essay for school about how her mother (my sister - then a divorced mother of 4 children) could make one chicken feed the family for a full week starting with small portions of roast chicken and ending with "soup" - stock made from the bones with some noodles cooked in it. I think she only stretched the truth a very small bit. 

 

When I was cooking for my family of five on a very tight budget, I could usually make one roast chicken feed us for four nights pretty easily.  First, I'd make the kids look through the entire meat section to find the biggest, fattest chicken, with a prize to the winner.  I'd roast it with the usual vegetables - potatoes, carrots, celery, onions - and first night, roast chicken.  Second night, some sort of chicken "stretch" dinner - chicken a la king on toast or biscuits, chicken curry on rice, chicken spaghetti, etc.  Then carcass into stewing pot.  I'd make a lot (at least two night's worth) of chicken soup, adding some sort of starch - noodles, rice, potatoes, etc.  So, third night, "regular" chicken soup.  And fourth night, change up the chicken soup to something different, so it wasn't boring.  Most often, I suppose, I'd add some salsa (if I'd added rice as the starch) and make chicken tortilla soup, but sometimes I'd add cream and mushrooms (if I'd added noodles), or maybe Greek spices and lemon juice (best with the potatoes, but also perfect with rice of course). 

 

I tried to make a really big pot of that chicken soup and, often, after four good meals, there'd be just enough left over for lunch or light supper, if I included a salad or sandwich on the side.

 

Our family of five in those "stretch a chicken until it squeals" days did include three smallish children.  When those two boys hit their teen years, not so easy.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2016 by Jaymes (log)

[Baron d'Apcher]

If you aren't getting the neck, feet, gizzard, heart and liver, they are holding out on you.  Those parts should be included.

[jim loellbach]

Ditto on the giblets.  You can make a nice chicken liver and gizzard cream sauce for pasta for 2 people from 1 bird.  Shallots, giblets, mushrooms to bulk it up, a splash of cognac or whiskey, and cream.  I like it best with pappardelle.

[Tere]

I've had lemon chicken cartilage as a bar snack in Japan. Very tasty, if not calorific.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

10 hours ago, Jaymes said:

Our family of five in those "stretch a chicken until it squeals" days did include three smallish children.  When those two boys hit their teen years, not so easy.

 

I have two boys.  I recall dinner once with just the oldest when I placed a lovely roast on the table and he inquired:  "And what are you going to have?"

 

In the refrigerator I have a chicken.  We'll see how much mileage I get out of it.

[weinoo]

18 hours ago, Baron d'Apcher said:

If you aren't getting the neck, feet, gizzard, heart and liver, they are holding out on you.  Those parts should be included.

But you know that the feet generally aren't included in most, if not all, supermarket style birds. In Chinatown, yes.

 

Baron - have you had a Sasso bird yet?

[gfweb]

Did the experiment. 7 lb roaster yielded 2 generous dinners and 6 sandwiches as well as stock.
 

 

 

 

[FeChef]

In my house a 6lb chicken makes 3 servings that night (rotisserie) then 2-4 serving next day as chicken salad. Then the left over carcass and drippings make stock for ramen (2 servings). Thats about as far as i will stretch it. Im sure i could get more creative but im not that frugal.

[Baron d'Apcher]

On 3/19/2016 at 11:36 AM, weinoo said:

But you know that the feet generally aren't included in most, if not all, supermarket style birds. In Chinatown, yes.

 

Baron - have you had a Sasso bird yet?

 

Sasso isn't a specific breed and could be any one of many birds, so maybe.  I have had Poulet Rouge (Freedom Ranger) and black footed Poulet Noir from Mattituck/Cutchogue, Long Island as well as Yellow Gâtinais in France in the past year.  I saw a stunning variety of poultry in France (up to $30/lb Bresse capons) last year during the holidays, the likes of which we will never see in the US unfortunately.  All with feet, neck and giblets.  Some birds at Hugo Desnoyer (Paris, 14th) were eviscerated to order.  Top notch quality and flavor.

 

Poulet Rouge (Browder's; Mattituck)

 

 

Poulet Noir (8 Hands Farm, Cutchogue)

 

 

[liuzhou]

On 18/03/2016 at 4:56 AM, Baron d'Apcher said:

If you aren't getting the neck, feet, gizzard, heart and liver, they are holding out on you.  Those parts should be included.

 

Like most people here, I buy my birds live so I guess I'm getting the lot. So, I can use the legs for one dish, the breasts for another (or maybe two), do a chicken liver pasta dish.  

 

Then I can go Chinese and use the protein more like a condiment for the vegetation. Cocks combs with garlic scapes, for example. All the offal gets used in different dishes. Chicken hearts with noodles.

 

Then we chew down on the feet while making a stock with the stripped carcase.

 

I've never actually counted how many meals one chicken contributes to. Will do next time I buy one.

 

The only parts that don't get used in dinner are the feathers.

 

[weinoo]

5 hours ago, Baron d'Apcher said:

 

Sasso isn't a specific breed and could be any one of many birds, so maybe.  I have had Poulet Rouge (Freedom Ranger) and black footed Poulet Noir from Mattituck/Cutchogue, Long Island as well as Yellow Gâtinais in France in the past year.  I saw a stunning variety of poultry in France (up to $30/lb Bresse capons) last year during the holidays, the likes of which we will never see in the US unfortunately.  All with feet, neck and giblets.  Some birds at Hugo Desnoyer (Paris, 14th) were eviscerated to order.  Top notch quality and flavor.

 

 

Seems like the one I roasted last week is the X44B, from La Pera Poultry.

 

It never ceases to amaze, and always arouses jealousy, when in France and seeing the variety of poultry available in markets there.

 

Perhaps we're getting a little better here, too.

[rotuts]

Ive never understood shy the French Bird 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresse_chicken

 

isn't grown here esp in the gourmet farms.

[Baron d'Apcher]

10 hours ago, rotuts said:

Ive never understood shy the French Bird 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresse_chicken

 

isn't grown here esp in the gourmet farms.

There are "Bresse -style" chickens raised in Washington state, but in order to qualify as a bonafide Bresse chicken, it has to be from Bresse and the standards for raising/slaughtering them are very stringent, as mentioned in the wiki-link (they have minimum space requirements and need to be plucked by hand on account of the thin skin). Furthermore, Americans think of chicken as a lowly commodity since factory Cornish Cross became the norm and are too cheap to pay what a quality bird like Bresse would cost.

[Martin Fisher]

50 minutes ago, Baron d'Apcher said:

Americans think of chicken as a lowly commodity since factory Cornish Cross became the norm and are too cheap to pay what a quality bird like Bresse would cost.

 

That's right, them damn 'Americans' NEVER ever stray from cheap commodity food!!!!! 

Edited March 22, 2016 by DiggingDogFarm (log)