The Mumsnet Chicken

[FastApprochingForty]

I'll start by saying I'm not a good cook but have been trying. Inspired by the (often satirical) comments, and the fact many of you may have had one as a Sunday roast, how many meals can you get out of a roast chicken, (depending on size of bird and family)?

I've managed to get 3 dinners and 2 lunches for two adults (we've no kids) out a 1.5kg roast chicken:
Dinner 1 & 2: breast meat with salad, hummus and flatbread.
Dinner 3: legs with rice & Asian veg.
Lunch 1 & 2: strip remaining meat off carcass and boil remains for stock and turn into chicken & veg soup. (Not sure I'm doing the stock part long enough, as still end up adding a chicken stock-cube).

Am interested to hear of others meal plans from a single chicken.

Since this is AIBU, mine is that I normally bin the stuff that's left in the bottom of the cooking tray. Should I be doing anything with it, and is there anything to use it for apart from making gravy? I never see any congealed white bits of fat, just all looks like brown jelly when cold, so have never attempted to make gravy as not sure how the fat gets separated out.

Thanks

@WishingHopingThinkingPraying
Wow that's loads!

@Runningoutofnamestochange
The BBC risotto recipe looks really good, thanks for the link - will definitely be trying that.

That would do me and DH (no kids) roast dinner with gravy made from the roasting tin juices plus flour and wine and a bit of the water the veg cooked in, and we’d have the same again the next day (I make extra roasties for day 2), so four portions. Then I’d strip the chicken and boil the bones for stock, which would either be used for risotto or soup, but probably frozen until I could be arsed making those. The stripped chicken gets used for us both to have sandwiches for lunch, and leftovers go in pasta/curry/risotto/soup which is always made to feed us for two nights with added veggies. So ten portions and there may be stock in the freezer if I haven’t gone for making risotto or soup that week. And the dog gets the skin and any not nice meat bits chopped into treat-sized pieces and used for training. That’s about the same as you in terms of portions.
To get fat off gravy - tip the tin a bit and wait for it to settle, then take a soup spoon and gently ladle off the fat. The fat is golden when liquid and the juices are brown. You can keep some fat though - it makes your gravy tastier!

@WishingHopingThinkingPraying

1. Roast chicken dinner on Friday (6 people)

1. Loads of meat left for a chicken and bacon lasagne (6 people)
2. A few slices for 3 of my kids to have a sandwich
3. Stock with a good bit of meat in it for a chicken and veg soup (6 people).

It's actually mad how many meals it covers. I always laughed at the mythical Mumsnet chicken.

Dubious about this. Do you serve tracing paper thin slices of chicken....?

I will always be grateful to those who introduced me to the "mythical mumsnet chicken"

As a family of four we get at least four meals from every 1.8Kg bird and it would be five if I wasn't sick of chicken stock stew.

I make double the gravy and extra veg - put into a pyrex dish and next day add ready made puff pastry for an easy pie

Don't forget the chicken's head and feet make a lovely crunchy sandwich.
... and the feathers are great for throwing at weddings.
... as for the lower intenstines, well do you have a cat?
... the bones! the bones! lightly boil them and they make the best 'airfix' kit ever. We've got a number of the skeletons re-assembled around the house and if you put a bulb inside they make a very fascinating table light. (Not for a childs bedroom though!)

Years ago, when I was poor, I used to use a large chicken to feed two adults and a child with
Roast dinner, leg for DH and one breast sliced between DS and me.
The remaining meat would be stripped off and chopped up to make two more meals, things like Pasta Alfredo, chicken & leek shortcrust pastry pie, chicken and mushroom risotto, chicken and mushroom vol au vents made with puff pastry, chicken and bacon pie.
I used to make a pan of gravy with the giblets etc, to go with the roast and the various pies.
I'd probably get a lunch of chicken sandwiches for DS and me as well.
Then I'd make stock with the carcass (and that jelly!) and do a dinner of soup and an omelette, there would be enough soup for a couple of lunches for DS & me, and I'd add soup pasta or beans to stretch it a bit.

So that would be four main meals for three people, using cheap ingredients such as rice, pasta, pastry and vegetables to extend the chicken.

My plan this week was -
Roast dinner
Chicken curry
Stir fried rice with chicken
Chicken wrap for child
Hot and sour chicken soup (last 3 don't use much chicken)

Unfortunately we bought everything we needed for these meals other than the chicken so have had to improvise!

damn, large chicken for Sunday lunch 2 adults.and 2 teens and 2 cats. Nothing left.
Are you only having a tiny bit of meat with your meal?

We had a 1.5kg roast chicken tonight. 2 adults and 2 small DC. I've packed a leg for each of my next 2 lunches at work. We are going to have fajitas with the leftover meat tomorrow. If there's any left after that I'll add it to pasta or risotto on Wednesday. I need to get better at using the carcass to make stock, I often can't be bothered and throw it away.

There's four of us - two adults and two teens/pre-teens. If we roast a whole chicken, shock horror, we eat it! All of it. It amounts to half a chicken breast and a leg or wing each. That's not a massive amount in my books.

If we have a roast chicken it feeds DH, (toddler) DS and I one decent evening meal (roast, curry, whatever) from the breast/thigh meat and the rest goes to the dogs. On the plus side, nothing's ever wasted!

What I never understood are the tiny portions of meat that seems to serve everyone.
A large chicken will be 2 days in my household. 1 roast + 1 leftover and boiled carcass use (pasta, paella style rice, pie or curry)
2 adults and a toddler. Each adult 1 breast or leg is a portion.

You say you're not a good cook but are trying, have a look at these recipes, they're all quick and very tasty!

"Honey-mustard chicken pasta recipe - BBC Good Food" www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/honey-mustard-chicken-pasta/amp

"Amatriciana chicken traybake recipe - BBC Good Food" www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/amatriciana-chicken-traybake/amp
To make that one even easier, I use garlic/chilli paste

"Butter bean & chorizo stew recipe - BBC Good Food" www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/butter-bean-chorizo-stew/amp
Great on fresh baguettes for lunch

"Cottage pie recipe - BBC Good Food" www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cottage-pie/amp
Bit more effort, but makes 10 portions, so you can freeze for another day and it's lovely!

Just one dinner and then give pets what's left.

1 decent dinner for 2-3 people
If I pick bones then a few leftovers for sandwiches, soup or salad

We had a "mumsnet roast chicken last week" 4 adults and a baby who eats an impressive amount; "extra large" chicken - not sure of weight. From our local farm shop too so is extra flavoursome so need less meat for a "meaty" flavour.

1. Roast dinner w quite a range of sides inc roasted swede, stuffing, etc so not as much meat used as 'normal'
2. chicken, chickpea and spinach coconut curry w rice
3. Chicken and black bean quesadillas w guac
4. Chicken, lentil and sweetcorn soup w garlic bread and salad
5. Chicken, leek, mushroom and bacon puff pastry topped pie w mash and veg

^ These were our dinners mon-fri. So, KIND OF 20-25 meals out of one chicken - both DH and BIL don't think it's a meal without meat and moan, so we just have the same amount of meat spread over more meals, rather than less meals + a couple of veggie meals. Bloody stupid but it stops the complaining. (I love DH and BIL but since we've all been living together they can act like teenagers sometimes!!!).

In response to comments of "tiny bits of meat being served"; the "trick" for me is to make sure the rest of the meal is appealing, not just the meat.

For the roast we also had lots of buttery mash, stuffing, roasted herby carrots/parsnips/swede, plenty of greens and Yorkshire puddings. For some people the roast dinner is all about the meat, but it doesn't have to be. Unless we're having lamb, then we eat the whole damn leg because it is just too good (my uncle has a small holding and we only ever get our lamb from him and it is incredible). I've always done this as I was veggie as a teen so got used to eating 'just' the sides on a Sunday and nudged my dad to make better ones to make it more enjoyable for me!

Chickpeas/black beans/lentils/ample veg bulk out the other meals.

2 of us.

Friday we had a roast chicken dinner with steamed beans carrots new potatoes gravy
Yesterday we needed a quick lunch, chicken sandwiches
Today he made a chicken and leek pie (actually 2, one we ate and one for the freezer)
had enough chicken now :-)
Tomorrow I;ll cook up the carcase for stock, then strip of any remaining meat, make some chicken and vegetable soup and freeze it.

Does it not stand to reason the less meat you eat at each meal the longer you can make it last. If course you can get many meals out of one chicken if you only have a very small amount of meat in each meal.

They are not magic chickens, those who can make many meals out of it, habe small amounts of meat, those who eat it in a couple of meals have more meat, the amount of meat is finite.

DH and I get two meals from a chicken: one roast and one stir fry. If we were less greedy, we could get three meals, I suppose, but I'd rather eat what I want with abandon than worry about leftovers.

very true Bluntness100
Sometimes i see some meals suggested as chicken, where i am suspicious the stuff being used to stretch the chicken is more expensive than chicken itself and it would be cheaper to just have two chickens.

But i dont like waste so still use it all up and its tasty.

Roast chicken dinner for 1 adult 1 child, with gravy, roasties and lots of veggies. Chicken sandwiches or wraps for a couple of lunches each, plus another meal for two (pie, wraps, quesadillas, Caesar salad, pasta etc). So I guess 8 meals? Most don’t use much meat though.

I don’t like chicken stock in soups but I always boil the carcass for my dogs. They love that, and any leftover or not do nice meat.

I get a large free range chicken probably every other week. We eat a lot of chicken!

Look up how much protein each of you needs per day based on age, sex, body type, activity level. Then work out what a serving of chicken is for each of you. Meat from chicken divided by serving requirements equals number of meals from one chicken. Anyone can use a whole chicken in one meal or make it stretch to 20 meals if they don't actually consider what the body needs in terms of protein.

Soooooo many variables involved in how many meals does a chicken make.

"Don't forget the chicken's head and feet make a lovely crunchy sandwich.
... and the feathers are great for throwing at weddings.
... as for the lower intenstines, well do you have a cat?
... the bones! the bones! lightly boil them and they make the best 'airfix' kit ever. We've got a number of the skeletons re-assembled around the house and if you put a bulb inside they make a very fascinating table light. (Not for a childs bedroom though!)"

genius