Mumsnet my chicken please

[meepmoop]

While shopping today I've bought a whole chicken (large) in Tesco instead of a pack of chicken breasts.

I'm out of money this week so need it to stretch as far as possible. It's for 3 adults and a toddler.

Please can you give my chicken the mumsnet treatment

Thank you

Meal 1. Roast it and have the 2 breasts between the 4 of you with potatoes and veg.
Divide remaining meat into 2.
Meal 2. Spanish chicken.Fry an onion and 2 peppers, add tin tomatoes and seasoning. Add the shredded chicken and serve with rice.
Meal 3. Chicken pasta bake. Add chicken to a tin of cream of chicken soup. Mix with cooked pasta. Top with breadcrumbs and cheese and bake. Serve with whatever veg or salad you have.

Proper mumsnetters will now do something with the carcass. Hopefully one will come along.

One meal will be roast chicken dinner.

Then you need to strip the chicken of literally every piece of meat on it, and I mean everything, turn it upside down you name it.

I usually use the meat I've stripped in the following meals ( but there is two of us so when we have the roast dinner the first night we just have a leg each)

Chicken Curry
Risotto
Chicken noodle soup.

I know other people use the carcass to make stock for soup as well.

Roast the chicken, use the two breasts thinly sliced with roast potatoes, two other vegetables such as carrots and broccoli, Yorkshire puddings if you have them with chicken, stuffing and gravy, quite a substantial meal.

When the bird is cold strip off every bit of meat from the carcass, and chop it. Use it to make ~
Chicken risotto with peas, broccoli, sweet corn, mushrooms, onions in any combination.
Chicken and leek pie or chicken & mushroom pie with white sauce or left over gravy, serve with mash & additional vegetables.
Chicken & mushrooms in white wine sauce served with rice or pasta (Pasta Alfredo).

Make stock with the carcass, and use it for vegetable soup, add pasta or beans to the soup to make it more substantial, serve with grated cheese or toasted cheese for more protein. Also if not making soup, use the stock in the risotto and white sauce for flavour. Don't forget to add any left over gravy/meat juice when starting off the stock again for flavour.

Boil the carcass with carrot, onion and celery for chicken broth. Don't waste it by putting it in another soup. It takes a few hours but delicious. Add some angel hair pasta and dumplings if you can make them.

Great ideas, Thank you

I’d roast it as other have said, then strip it and probably do risotto (bulk it out with lots of mushrooms, a whole punnet of economy mushrooms is pennies) and chicken and leek pie (that I’d bulk out with lots of leek and celery and onion (whatever you have handy / is cheap).

Then put the carcass in the slow cooker if you have one, with whatever veg you have out of onion (the onion you roasted it with up it’s bum will be good), celery, cauliflower, leek, carrot. Add a splash of white vinegar, a couple of bay leaves and salt and pepper (peppercorns, if you have them). Simmer very gently overnight, then drain the liquid off and turn that into soup by adding a chicken stock cube, another onion (finely chopped this time) and some chopped carrot and / or celery. You can bulk it out by serving it with noddles (cook them separately, otherwise they go mushy) to make a chicken noodle soup, or just serve it with random fridge leftovers (cheese, ham, whatever) and toast.

I'd probably not have a roast but do nigella's praised chicken as it seems to make it go further!

www.nigella.com/recipes/my-mothers-praised-chicken

Don't worry about using wine just add more water!

You can then strip the carcass and do what you want with the meat, shove in pasta, risotto, noodles or pie

Good luck