How to stretch a chicken?

[Mintgreendressinggown]

Yes yes I know lots of people make a chicken last a whole week. I’ve cooked one - how can I now make the most of it this week? Guessing dinner today? Make stock with carcass - how?! What other things can I do to minimise wastage.

What size is it and how many are you feeding? A large free range bird from the butcher is a world apart from a medium/small supermarket bird.

Need to know size of chicken and how many people it’s for.

Most important details.
Tesco sells a 1300g chicken that would only do for dinner here one day. If I buy a bigger, say 2kg chicken, it can also make salads, sandwiches or a curry... depending on what we fancy.

But I always make stock with carcass. Just bung in big pot with an onion and carrot, and cover with water. Bubble low and slow. You’ll need to skim the scum off the top sporadically. The end result should be jelly like when cool.

We are roasting an extra large Tesco chicken tomorrow.

Monday - roast chicken and veg.
Tuesday - chicken chow mein.
Weds - huge pot of Mexican chicken and bean soup.
Thurs - stock.

Would expect a couple of sandwiches from it too.

Two adults, one thirteen yo.

What meal are you having with the chicken today? Once you've had that, strip all the meat from the carcass, cool and pop in fridge. Then you can make a meal with it tomorrow or Tuesday and/or use for sandwiches.
Loads of meals that can use cooked chicken - fajitas, with pasta and a creamy mushroom sauce, noodle bowl, with leeks in a pie, curry and rice etc.
I would make stock from the carcass by putting it in a saucepan, adding a quartered onion, a chopped up carrot and bit of celery if I had it. Plus salt, peppercorns, bay leaf. Parsley stalks and thyme or other herbs if I had them. Cover in cold water, bring to boil then slow simmer (hard boiling makes a cloudy stock) for a couple of hours. Strain, cool, pop in fridge, later skim any solidified fat off. Can freeze. Use for soup or in gravy or recipes.

How big is it and what's your first meal? These details help.
Strip the entire chicken, underneath as well. There's more meat than you think. Boil the bones for stock, just don't drain it all into the sink through a colander when you're done.

If your goal is as many chicken meals as possible, you're better choosing meals that involve 'stretching' it from the off, if that makes sense. Not having it as a roast and leftovers. You'll also maximise the amount of meals from one bird if you do something with stock. Soup and risotto are the best bets there. I also like a chicken and egg fried rice with all the greasy picky little bits off the bottom. That can also be a chicken meal without that much chicken, if needed.

Hard to say more than that without knowing about weight and number to be fed, as others have said.

Roast chicken, skirlie, veg etc today
Shredded chicken sriracha noodles with veg tomorrow
Or Rissotto
Stock with carcass to make soup
Left over meat / bones picked for the dogs. ( no bones before anyone freaks)

Thats a small 3-4 person M&S bird - two hungry adults.

Quality of the chicken is a huge factor in this.

I spend abut £12 - 15 on a proper free range chicken and get several meals out of it and delicious stock.

On the very rare occasions we have a cheap chicken (e.g. it's a reduced spit roast one from the deli counter at the end of the day) it barely does one meal and the stock produced is a waste of electricity frankly.

We have roast chicken, chicken and mushroom pie, chicken and bacon risotto and chicken and sweetcorn soup usually. There are only shreds of chicken in the risotto and the soup really, all the flavour is in the stock.

You can't be afraid to really get your fingers in and pull every last scrap of meat off the bones though - there's loads underneath that people often forget about.

I also do the same with chicken legs and thighs - you can buy massive free range ones really cheaply and get tons of good healthy brown meat for protein and bones for stock.

How big, how many people?

Nail the wings to the breadboard and gently pull on the legs applying even pressure.

I think that might be a dinosaur rather than a chicken!

If I really want to stretch the leftovers out, I make meals where chicken can be a component and not the central element. So, for example, taco filling that's bulked out with vegetables and beans.

Oh, I thought this said how to sketch a chicken. I was here for all the hen drawings 🐔

I'll see my vegetarian self out...

I thought that was animal cruelty OP 🤣DH just said if you stretch a chicken it becomes a duck 🤣🤣🤣

I buy 1.9kg chickens. I cut them in half down the breastbone/underneath and freeze half, roast the other half, feeds three for a fully loaded roast dinner plus a bit for 🐈‍⬛ .

I throw everything that’s left into a pot to make this. There’s enough chicken in it for a hearty soup for three. I don’t think we’re huge on meat though tbh. It’s soup with chicken rather than chicken soup.

My ability to stretch a chicken is correlated to my ability to hide it from DH.
Usually a roast chicken dinner night one, curry night 2 and chicken and bacon salad sandwiches for lunches or night 3 pasta dish with chicken.

It's 3 adults. I'm inviting myself round!

It really does depend on the type of meals you eat and how much meat you expect. A portion of meat is around the size of a pack of playing cards. Most people eat far too much meat and not enough veg. I would do a roast and use all of the breast between 4 people. Then a curry the day after using the leg, thigh and wings and any other decent looking bits. Then the day after that we would have a soup with the stock and the scraps.

🤣 There's not a lot of chicken needed in either chow mein (lots of veg) or the soup (lots of beans) tbf.

It is rather a large chook though - and I'm a very thorough stripper... 😁😁😁

I think DH and I are pigs, that's 2 days for us, but I do freeze the carcass. When I have 4/5 carcasses in the freezer, I make a big pot of chicken stock (adding carrots, onions, etc) and freeze it. I normally get about 4 litres of stock from it.

Following for inspo... pretty good at making a chicken to stretch but always open to new ideas!

A fave thing in my house from leftover chicken is to shred it. Fry in a little oil and add some cinnamon, chilli powder and salt and pepper. Kind of stir fry it until it starts to go crispy then add a drizzle of honey. We have it in wraps with some mayo and salad. You can also serve it over a salad. So yummy!

Roast chicken
Cold roast chicken
Chicken curry
Chicken fried rice (with veg etc)
Chicken pie (with mushrooms/ham/leeks whatever you fancy)
Chicken fricasee (with bacon/ham)
Chicken soup (with bits of chicken in it and made with stock made by boiling up the bones and using the jellified chicken juices
Chicken and vegetable broth ( made with stock as above)

Depends on how many people and the size of the chicken!