Four Meals for Four… from One Chicken

The other day I bought a chicken at the grocery store. If I remember correctly, it cost 13€. It was by far the most expensive item in my grocery cart, but I’ll get four meals out of it. Here’s how.

• First, I roast it. Last night we had a very nice roast chicken dinner. I seasoned it generously with salt, pepper, garlic, and herbs, and I stuck a mandarin orange up it.
• Today, I boiled it for several hours, starting with enough cold water to cover it. Then, I drained the stock back into the pot, leaving me with a colander full of chicken bits.
• The most time consuming part is separating the bones from the meat. If I still had a dog I would separate into three, using the skin to glam up his meals for a few days. But alas, no dog, so the skin gets discarded with the bones.

We had a nice roast chicken dinner and I now have stock for soup (I’m thinking veggie), and enough meat for two more meals. Tonight I’ll make chicken potpie with 1/2, and freeze the rest for something else.

Et voila!

How do you make good use of your leftover chicken?

Kelly Rigotti started Almost Frugal as a thirty-something American trying to dig her way out from under a mountain of debt (~€60,000). She's almost frugal and would like to be more so, but shops at Ikea too often for her own good.

Kelly has blogged 584 posts here.