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

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned braised chicken feet in black bean sauce or tiger skin chicken feet, the Chinese know how to Mumsnet a chicken!
They often fry the chicken skin separately, and use it as a crispy garnish for rice, or for flavour in dumplings.

As for the delicious golden chicken fat, don't throw it away, it's wonderful Schmaltz, use it to fry the vegetables for your chicken soup, those golden droplets of Schmaltz will turn your chicken soup into real food for the soul!

We always get three meals from a roast free range chicken, occasionally four.

When I strip the carcass, I will fill a 1 litre volume Tupperware box with leftover chicken.

We have things with the leftovers like noodle soup, curry, enchiladas, pasta bake, risotto, pie, pasties.

A large chicken will do a roast dinner for me, DH, DD(8) and DD (1).

Me and DH will get a butty out if it.

Then any meat stripped off it to make a soup.

I can not be arsed farting around boiling the carcass though.

@TheTeenageYears

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.

Fuck. That. Shit.

A breast each for me and DH with the roast then we'll polish off the legs in the evening. Can't be doing with wings, too little meat, too much grease and effort. Dave next door (a cat) gets those (with his owners consent, I might add). Skin in the bin, neither of us likes it. As for the carcass (You are the carcass!), that gets binned, can't abide the stench it gives off when boiled.

Just two adults here. We would have a roast dinner, then the next night chicken and red pepper risotto. We might have a bit left over, which I would shred and add to a chickpea curry, but more often than not the cat gets the scraps, and that’s us done.

Occasionally DP will faff around boiling the bones to make soup, but I absolutely hate the smell, and am currently working at the kitchen table, so not at the moment.

I think we might buy smaller chickens than other posters tbh.

Absolutely loads. But, my parents were brought up in the war so had different ideas about portion size. Also the chicken was never the main part of the meal so maybe an addition to a veggie curry say and similar type dishes where there is a sauce and lots of veggies and possibly beans too. When I don't do loads of veggies/ sides then we use a lot more chicken.

We are a family of 5. I cook a large chicken and an extra small joint of mrat when we have a roast beef or lamb

Das is 16 and will eat a breast and whole leg) and thigh to himself dh is the same. So that is 1 chicken gone.

I sometimes have enough for 2 sandwiches left but that is it

2adults and we get on meal out of it because bastard cat starts crying as soon as he smells chicken and doesn't stop until he has eaten every last piece of it

TwoLeftSocksWithHoles
I love you.
Airfix kits

In this house, I cook 2 chickens as one is never enough.
There are 5 of us but one is vegan

Family of six. 2 adults, 4 older children.

From a chicken (large) we get:
One roast. I usually do sausages too, yorkies and loads of veg so the meat goes further.

I then strip the remaining meat, and boil the carcass for stock. I will generally have enough for:
One chicken meal (pie/curry/risotto/stir fry, etc)
Chicken and veg soup. I use up the gravy in this.

So 18 dishes,

I never quite understand the mirth around a Mumsnet chicken. There's me, DH, ds(13) and dd(11) in our family. I buy a large (1.5k) chicken and, from that, ill get a Sunday roast - dc's prefer leg meat, so they have a leg each. DH and I have about 3 slices of breast each, quite thinly sliced, so that only uses up the one breast. We have loads of other stuff on the plates - roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, swede, parsnip, peas and stuffing, so the chicken is only a small part of the meal.
The following night, ill use the other breast to make a chicken, ham and leek pie.
The third night, I'll make a pasta sauce with the offcuts of chicken. Again, the chicken is just an add-on, as the main part of the sauce is tomatoes/onions/peppers/cream - whatever I've got in the fridge.
On the 4th day, ill boil up the carcass for a good few hours and, normally, would make the stock into a soup. There's not a massive amount of chicken left at this point, but the soup gets bulked out with leeks, carrots, swede, and some pearl barley.
Alternatively, I sometimes do away with the pasta sauce and the soup, and make risotto with the remaining meat and stock. But that can be expensive, given the amount of butter and parmesan cheese i use in mine.

2 adults, 1 teen. We had roast yesterday and then I made a pie out of leftover chicken and stuffing. The miserable looking carcass will be stripped by DH for his lunch tomorrow

We had a 1.6kg chicken last week.

The first meal did 2 adults and 2 teens a roast using the recommended portion size for chicken (90-100g each). It was served with Yorkshire puds, stuffing, roast potatoes, gravy, swede, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans and peas. I also used part of the chicken jelly (stock) to make the gravy.

The next day we had chicken, spinach and mushroom cannelloni served in a mushroom sauce and a side salad.

Then 3 of us had a roll each with some chicken meat in (along with salad, mayo, etc) for lunch.

The rest was made into a thick soup/stew using the carcass and about 250g leftover meat, the chicken jelly, potatoes, red lentils, pearl barley, herbs, onion, seasoning and carrots and any veg leftover from the roast.
This was enough for around 10 portions and was served with crusty bread.

All in all we got around 21 portions from this one chicken. That's about usual for me, but will sometimes be slightly more or less depending on what meals I make with the leftovers.

The concept of leftover roast chicken doesn't really exist in our house. Roast chicken is DP's favourite food of all time. Leftover chicken will be hunted down and eaten unless I somehow manage to hide it.

I used to get several meals for me and 2 large appetite dc. Roast dinner, chicken salad, curry, soup, sandwiches, quesadilla, pasta bake so potentially 8, how we've lockdown cooking momo Tony has made in in to a far lazier and less creative cook alongside now having a full time job, a puppy and being a single parent, I'll probably just feed the roast left overs to the dog 😆

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.

Exactly this. Bulk out meals with other tasty things and you will use less chicken, for example my curry will have loads of mushrooms, chick peas, veg. Only a small amount of chicken is needed in a tasty lentil soup. A chicken salad with boiled eggs, potato salad and coleslaw doesn't need a huge chunk of chicken, quesadillas can be made from all the little bits most people probably don't even bother to strip alongside sone veg in fajita spice. If people are having a whole leg/breast with their roast then it won't go far. We don't have kids of meat with ours as I like all the extras like sausage meat stuffing, cauli cheese, both mashed and roast potatoes and a ton of veggies not just 2 types.

That’s the thing though, if you can get 20 odd portions from a chicken you’re using a tiny amount of chicken in each meal, if you get four portions you’re using more meat in each meal. It’s the exact same total amount of meat in the four portions as the twenty portions.

So for the four portions you’re looking at an average of one chicken breast or one leg per person.

For the twenty portions you’re looking at on average 20 percent of a chicken breast or leg per person per portion.

Or to put it another way, you’re sharing one chicken breast between five people, to make it work.

Large chicken for family of 3 and maybe one or two days.

We (2 adults and active teen) usually buy big chickens (2kg+). Both legs and 1/2 a breast get eaten in first sitting BUT I have to announce plans for the rest of the bird if I hope to have enough left for 2 more meals and some soup/noodle lunch.

Veg and stuffing/bacon/rissoles/pigs in blankets definitely make up the bulk of the roast meal and black beans or sweet corn are good with leftovers.

I also try to have too many spuds cooked so we can have bubble and squeak.

For the juicy bits, we have a gravy separator.

Madcats tell me about a gravy separator!

I just pour the roasting juices in to a jug and put it in the fridge while the chicken is wrapped in foil resting( so about 30-40 mins). When you take it out, the fat can be skimmed off the top with a spoon. Juices are below

@justanotherremainer

Madcats tell me about a gravy separator!

I just pour the roasting juices in to a jug and put it in the fridge while the chicken is wrapped in foil resting( so about 30-40 mins). When you take it out, the fat can be skimmed off the top with a spoon. Juices are below

You don't need a separator.

Try this very effective trick - gravy in jug then drop in a couple of ice cubes, the fat miraculously clusters and clings to the ice!

Remove cluster - done!

@Westfacing

Ice is for gin! Not to be frivolously wasted on gravy fat!

I have one of the Oxo gravy separators. Use it to pour the excess fat off my stock. Lovely thing. Previously I used to fridge the stock and when solid scrape the excess fat off but that was a faff.

[quote TwoLeftSocksWithHoles]@Westfacing

Ice is for gin! Not to be frivolously wasted on gravy fat! [/quote]
By the time you're at the gravy stage you'll have finished your gin and be on the wine!

It depends on the bird (both how big and how tasty it is) and how hungry we are. But generally:

Dinner 1: roast with veg, potatoes and gravy
Lunch 1: toastie with grilled cheese and pesto
Dinner 2: salad or reheated in leftover gravy with freshly boiled potatoes and veg
Lunch 2: soup (having boiled carcass for stock, some bits of chicken included and lots of veg)
Dinner 3: stir fry with lots of veg, or quesadillas, or pasta with creamy sauce and mushrooms - or risotto if I have leftover stock
Might manage another small bit for 1 Spanish omlette (with lots of other veg) for 1 more lunch