I bought a 1.8kg chicken reduced down to £3. Thought I try to see how many meals I could get out of it, seeing as many on here talk about the magical Mumsnet chicken 🐔 😊
If nothing else, I thought it might give others some ideas for making meals go further.
All portions are for an adult, according to recommended portion sizes found on the ingredient packets, or recipe.
I roasted it in the airfryer along with some potatoes and parsnips. I also cooked carrots, runner beans, peas, green beans, and Yorkshire puds . Served with gravy.
Meat portion (cooked) was about 100g × 2 portions. This was less than 1 of the large breasts between us. It was more than enough with all the other trimmings. Different sites put the portion size of chicken anywhere between 80g to 150g, depending on the recipe/rest of the meal's ingredients. For Eg, a curry will usually suggest less chicken/serving than chicken, mash and peas.
The next day, I took off the rest of the breast meat from both sides, which gave just ~400g meat. I used this as the basis for a chicken, mushroom and sweetcorn risotto, using a large tin of sweetcorn, and 3 small tins of sliced mushrooms that had to be used up. Based on 75g dry risotto rice per portion (recommended portion size for an adult), I made enough for 6 adult portions. For someone with a very large appetite, you could always add on some garlic bread.
With the remaining carcass and drumstick/ thigh/ wing meat I made a stock using about 4l water plus 2 stock cubes, salt, black pepper, 1 large diced onion, 2 large whole carrots, and some herbs, as well as the juices/jelly that I'd saved from roasting the chicken. I brought it to the boil and then simmered for ~1 hour.
I then removed and diced the carrots, and removed the carcass and took all the meat off the bone, leaving aside the skin and cartilage and offal bits for my pets. The meat went back into the soup alongside the diced carrots. I then added ~200g dried pearl barley and ~100g red lentils as well as a handful (~50g) of dried split peas and about 500g peeled and quartered potatoes. I then checked and adjusted the seasoning and added some maggi, brought it back to a boil and cooked this at a low simmer for around 40-50mins until the pearl barley, etc, was fully cooked. This made 8 decent sized portions of soup. My dh ate his portions with a slice of homemade sourdough bread, but mine was filling enough without bread for me.
All in all, this 1 chicken was used to make 16 portions. Not bad, although the chicken is obviously not the star of the show in each meal, but the taste did come through and it didn't feel stingy... there was definitely more chicken than you'd get in a ready made risotto or soup 😂😎
I tend to do similar things with all joints of meat we buy. The 1st meal will be a simple roast or something similar, then I'll use up the leftovers in pasta, rice, soup or stew dishes. Depending on the size of the joint, I get at least 4 meals for 2 from each one.