Weekend Project- One Chicken 3 meals

 While it’s super easy to buy a roasted chicken they tend to be smaller than the whole uncooked chicken’s you can buy, and I dont’ seem to get much out of them either, plus they are too dry.
 Chicken is super easy to make a huge meal out of, you just have to plan it out that way. I can normally get 3-4 meals from one $8.78 whole uncooked chicken. Give or take , they run 8-10lbs and that’s what I am for when I want more than one meal.

The easiest way I get the most out of my chicken is my slowcooker. After taking the gizzards out, and yes I do save them. I line the slowcooker with carrots, celery, and chopped as well as halves onions as well as garlic. Place the Chicken on top and sprinkle with my Poultry mix, which is just Rosemary, thyme , Sage, Marjoram, and black pepper. You can use the store bought Poultry season, I love the McCormick brand but I always run out so it’s hard to find.

After placing the last of the cut onion around the chicken I cut up half a stick of butter and start it on slow for a full days cook. The picture shows frozen celery on top, as I always chop it and freeze it. Whenever you need celery it’s there and cooks up just as fresh!

Gravy-
While the chicken cooks I cover the gizzards with just enough water to cover the tops and sprinkle with the Poultry seasoning. Bringing to a boil and then let it simmer before I take the gizzards out. From here you can either save the broth for later use or make gravy out of it right away, in which I use a mixture of flour/water till it’s thickened. Homemade gravy beats all, I’m telling you!

From one Chicken you get all of this *minus a pic of the gravy from gizzards

First Meal- Two options*
Once the chicken is done you can divide it up however you want, I shredded up everything off the  main body  and kept the thighs and wings whole which become lunch for me and the kids. Believe it or not there was a lot of meat on those bones so it was plenty. Sometimes I even shread this all up to make some  Shortcup Soup

Second Meal-
    I strain the broth from bones or any chicken skin and clumps before sealing it up. This will be the base of my Chicken Pot Pie. About 2 cups of shredded Chicken will also become part of the dinner. All I need to do is thicken the broth and add frozen or fresh vegetables (peas, carrots if want more) then make a pie crust. The recipe for Chicken pot pie asked for more chicken but I’ve found this way works well enough, plus this way most the work is already done before hand.

Third Meal–
 Two more cups of the Shredded Chicken will make My Salsa Chicken  Hero Loaf.  If there’s still leftover I make chicken salad, chicken tacos or sandwiches.

Easy and cheap, One $8.78  chicken feeds our family of six plenty!  Try it out, make your chicken stretch as far as you can take it. Plan it out and use everything down to boiling the chicken bones to make even MORE broth! You can freeze the broth in a gallon sized ziplock bag, make sure you lable it .

Enjoy!