How to Stretch A Chicken
I have been thinking a lot about our budget. Notice I said "thinking" meaning I still have not gotten it down on paper. It is coming. It seems like the place I have the most ability to cut costs is in our food budget. We have to eat, but I can control the costs by making some frugal choices. We can go out to eat or stay home. Staying home is the more frugal option, but do we eat steak or ramen noodles or something in between?
Within the grocery budget, meat is one of the more costly items. My family is not ready to become vegetarians, but I am looking for ways to eat less meat purchased from the store. Hopefully Tim will get a deer this year (hope that doesn't offend anyone!) then our meat budget will be a significantly smaller issue. For now, though it is an issue.
One way I cut meat costs is to buy whole chicken. Last week I bought a whole chicken at Aldi for $2.37. This week I am going to see how far I can stretch that chicken. How many meals can I get out of it? Keep in mind I am feeding two adults, one school age child and two preschoolers.
The first step was to cook it. I prefer to use the crock pot. I think it keeps the meat more moist and it is easier to de-bone the chicken. I put salt, pepper and ginger in with it. Let it cook on low overnight. Let it cool so you can handle it and pick off all that meat!
Use a stainer to strain out the liquid contents left in the crock pot. Stick it the liquid in the fridge. When it is cold you can scrape off all the fat and you are left with the best broth! (It can be frozen to if you don't need it soon.)
Our first meal from the chicken was Enchilada Casserole. This is one of my favorite "recipes." I say "recipe" because I really had a recipe at some point, but it has evolved into a "use what you have on hand" meal that turns out different every time. This is how I made it yesterday.
Ingredients
1 can diced tomatoes with chilies (do not drain)
corn tortillas
1 can re-fried beans (or yours made from dry beans)
shredded chicken
shredded cheddar cheese
salsa
Grease baking dish. Put about 1/2 can of tomatoes in the bottom of the pan. Make a layer of tortillas. Then a layer of beans. Followed by chicken and then cheese. Repeat layers. Top with salsa and more cheese. Bake at 350 (uncovered) until bubbly and cheese is melted. (I think it was about 20 minutes)
I served this with sour cream, guacamole and tortilla chips.
This gave us two meals; dinner and lunch the next day.
Tomorrow I will post about this evenings meal: Creamy Chicken and Broccoli Soup with Wild Mushrooms. Tim is raving about it as I type.
Updated 2/24/07 to see what else this chicken was used for click on the links to this post below.
5 comments:
Thanks for the chicken tip. I am going to try this myself. I am feeding a family of two adults, one teenager and one preshcooler. We love casseroles so this should work out fine.
Blessings
I like the idea of cooking a whole chicken in my crockpot. We like enchiladas here, too. Frankly, I think they must have been invented by a frugal Mexican Mama!
I am not a big meat eater, but chicken is the one meat I DO eat, quite often, and it can get pretty expensive! We just recently bought two whole chickens and rubbed them down with spices and "roasted" them in the oven. One was more than enough to feed 5 people, so we had another left over for the rest of the week to make other types of dishes from...including chicken pot pies! Thanks for your tips =)
This is a great idea. I read somewhere that you should do the same with all meats - whole turkeys and roasts are usually cheaper.
They refer to this in the frugal circles as a "rubber chicken"! Usually at a minimum you can get 3 meals-roast chicken, a casserole, and chiken soup. If you pick the meat off to start with you can get even more to start with.
I personally like to use the chicken meat in "stirfry" or "curry", "Fried rice", "Chicken & Stuffing Casserole" (the stuffing was always my favorite part, so I just started making a big pan of stuffing and adding the chicken meat in), Chicken and gravy over biscuits, etc etc etc!
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