To throw away the chicken every week?

[Fluffyhood]

I know IABU but I need to be shamed so I start doing something about it!
Family of 4, we have a roast chicken every week, we eat the breast meat and then I throw away the rest every week, I hate doing it but I'm too lazy and unimaginative to think of what to do with the rest of it!
Please shame me and tell me what you do with yours, I'd love to make it stretch to another meal!

I absolutely love a curry with leftover roast chicken, massively prefer it to a curry made with diced breast or thigh! And a chopped onion and a few chopped mushrooms and a jar of premade curry sauce is a mega quick easy meal

It's just not Mumsnet without an active competitive chicken thread.

Probably not bringing anything to the party, but I buy a chicken one size up than we need to roast or spatchcock.
With the remaining chicken I'll make
Lazy chicken pie (left over chicken, left over roast potatoes, mushrooms and I make excess gravy with the roast snd use that for the sauce, ready roll puff pastry)
Curry
Fajitas
Chicken noodle soup( strip chicken, simmer bones with bay leaf, peppercorns, star anise, ginger, onion, carrot for couple of hours drain keeping stock (yes, I have poured the wrong thing away!) add chicken, some straight to wok udon noodles.
Stir fry.

I strip off the extra meat. Put the bones in the slow cooker (after I nearly burned down the house because I forgot about a stock pot once!) Then leave it to cook overnight. Sometimes for a day and night.

Then I have stock/almost bone broth and if I'm lucky there might still be some of the stripped chicken left to add to it for soup or stew.

Chicken risotto, with the skin crisped up in the oven on top, 😋

I say well done for being honest and trying to be more productive so as not to be wasteful. We can't all be perfect in everything, everyone has downfalls somewhere. Ignore the negative comments focus on the positive

Ooh the wings off a roast are so tasty! Next day is usually a stir fry of some kind and simmer the remaining bones/scraps for stock. Freeze the stock for soups/sauces/something. So at least 3 meals from that. A butcher would joint it for you if you asked nicely I’m sure and chicken would probably be better too. Don’t be ashamed, comments here will help you. I bet you’re not the only person that does the same.

Chicken noodle soup.

Pull the remaining meat off. Boiled that carcass for about 1 hour for stock. Drain stock, add chicken and sweet corn and ramen.

I serve mince with a boiled egg and pak Choi,

That is shocking. Here comes the shame for you - food waste contributes massively to global warming, and food poverty is a huge problem in this country. There are loads of lovely things you can make with the leftovers, chicken & pasta, chicken sandwiches, chicken curry. Just get hubby to pick it, that’s what I do. Or just buy breasts instead

@Castieldeansam - lazy chicken pie sounds really nice!

Invite me to dinner!. I only like the leg and thigh meat. I don't like the breast at all. You need a few people like me to rotate as dinner guests!
Seriously though, I couldn't get worked up about you throwing the rest of the meat away, except for the fact that I 'd be throwing the breast away

My favourite thing is to save the leftover chicken, warm it up the next day for warm chicken buttys with loads of butter and Mayo!

@GucciM

I say well done for being honest and trying to be more productive so as not to be wasteful. We can't all be perfect in everything, everyone has downfalls somewhere. Ignore the negative comments focus on the positive

She asked for negative comments to shame her into doing something about it

Chicken and rice soup. Actually mine is more like chicken and rice stew because I put so much in it.

Chicken pie with mashed potatoes is always a good one.

Until chicken was produced on a factory scale (1960's?), it was a luxury. In my childhood, we could not afford chicken at Christmas let alone turkey, so had a lovely steak pie topped with hand made puff pastry. My mother was an excellent cook. Evidently fluffyhood did not have a mother to teach her cooking, nor any instructioni in school. Thank Margaret Thatcher for that. Surely she can read, though.Self tuition from your phone is possible now, though nice illustrated cook books are preferable. If even reading taxes her, tv cooks abound to show you what to do. Is that enough shaming?

You won't believe it but I am actually now eating a scarps soup from different bones left over and vegetable peels and ends😂

I'm in shock but it's not your fault if you've not been set an example. Good for you for asking and trying to do something about it.

We had a chicken the other weekend and it did us, in various forms, about 15 meals.

4x roast chicken meals (2 adults, 2 children)
6x chicken and leek pie meals (about 2 adults, 4 children)
6x lentil soup meals (mainly adult)

After taking what you want for your roast dinner, strip off as much meat as you can - any knuckles or other chewy bits that you don't want put aside with the carcass (and you want to keep all the carcass, skin, bone, gristle, as it's full of nutrients and things like collagen). Don't forget the beautiful 'oysters' underneath the carcass - two little dells of bone either side of the spine that are filled with the most tender and delicious circles of meat - no need to cut; just feel for them and pull away with your fingers.

Chop leek and dice carrots - or any kind of 'pie' veg that you fancy really - fry in butter for a bit and then use that butter to make a white sauce 'around' them (40g butter, 40g flour, 1 pint whole milk). Season and add one or two decent spoons of wholegrain mustard. Chunk up the chicken and add to the sauce, then put in a dish. Make and roll out quick flaky pastry or use a pre-rolled puff pastry sheet and lay it over the top. If you have offcuts of pastry make some leaves and flowers (just roll up strips of pastry) and arrange decoratively on top, and then egg-wash. Bake at about 170degs (fan) for about 30-40 mins.

To make chicken stock with the carcass for soup, try to chop up the bones a bit. I usually leave the wings alone and pick the meat off after making the stock, as they are fiddly. Cut 1-2 carrots in rounds, and chop 2 celery sticks into pieces. Roughly cut up an onion and a few cloves of garlic. In a large pan, fry the veg gently in oil and then add the chicken bones and brown off - this develops flavour. Add a load of salt - about 2-3 tsps? - herbs, pepper or peppercorns (4) and 1-2 bay leaves, and cover in about 1 litre of water. Bring to the boil, then cover and leave it to simmer for at least an hour. Drain using a sieve (obviously, retain the stock) and then use to make soup. I pick off any good bits of meat that have become accessible and drop them into the stock. This is the point where you throw away your chicken! I don't keep these veg usually, as they've been boiled a lot, but some people do. I made this lentil soup the other day and it was lush.

I know it seems like a fag but really it isn't if you have a few staples in your house, and then obviously your chicken goes a lot further. Celery, carrots and onions are not expensive, and when you consider a nice pie will usually cost about £3 for one portion, it's good value.

grannieali

I agree.
Growing up in the 60s chicken was a very rare treat. Turkey was unheard of and we ate chicken once a year on christmas day.

We had a chicken the other weekend and it did us, in various forms, about 15 meals.

Where do you buy your chicken?

@grannieali @speakout was it still goose traditionally for Christmas at the time?

It wasn't 15 meals.

I don't think you can count stock made from a carcass as a "meal". It is flavoured water.

She means portions.

So, after all this time, you’ve never thought of looking for recipes to use up 3/4s of a chicken?
At my school there is a team who are filling boxes twice a week with cereal, tinned tomatoes( 6),beans (6)tuna(4)2lbs spuds,apples,oranges,stewed steak. That was this week. Each box has a recipe sheet in it.
My response has nothing to do with the MN roast chicken lasting a week trope.
If you don’t want or genuinely can’t be arsed to look for recipes give the rest to a neighbour who can use it.

@speakout

It wasn't 15 meals.

I don't think you can count stock made from a carcass as a "meal". It is flavoured water.

I beg to disagree. I don't like mixed thick soups so I eat bone broth ones. It can be lovely. Though that was too much salt for my taste.