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!

@Dilliontrollhair

I hear you, my kids only eat the breast and im veggie, so it gets binned or given to the cats!

Buy just breasts then fgs.

Honestly, what's wrong with some of you

No thank you, breasts go all dry and manky. How about you buy what you like, and stop telling me what to do!

This, nothing gets wasted and better than stock cubes

@Dilliontrollhair

No thank you, breasts go all dry and manky. How about you buy what you like, and stop telling me what to do!

Yeah, you don't have any high ground here...

It's not just the chicken dying only to be thrown away & the food waste issue that's a problem. There is also a food poverty problem in the UK particularly highlighted by Marcus Rashfood FSM campaign. Also, the pandemic has also shown how many people are barely making ends meet & relying on food banks. So reading a post like this has shown how polarised & disconnected certain communities in the UK are from each other.
.
OP well done for recognising how wasteful this is & trying to correct your bad habit picked up from your mother. It's upto you as a parent to model good & less wasteful behaviour for your kids. Life is busy & you can buy just chicken breasts if you don't have time to turn it into multiple meals.

Breast only people are completely missing the treat that is the oysters, BTW.

Mmmm oysters.

Four of you and you have enough in the breast. I would need to cook two chickens.
Pick it all off the bones and put in in a sandwhich or a chicken curry.

I strip off the meat, slow cooker the carcass for stock (then add leftover meat after draining) to make stew and make sandwiches or similar for lunch the next day,
We’re not skint but no way would o throw away so much chicken.

Just google chicken recipes? 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is a really long thread and i haven't RTFT

If no one has told you then please do a Nando's on your roast chicken - I've been so pleased ...

Sharp knife. Cut it in 4 (or5) service it up like quarter of chicken that Nando's would- let everyone pick off their own meat

No waste

So many options

Add meat from the leftover bird to curries, pasta sauces, salads

Use the carcas to flavour a soup or make your own stock with vegetable peelings. That can be frozen (ideally in ice cube trays) and used for soups and gravy. You get the best gravy from using the juices and a homemade stock - plenty of recipes on the internet

Or make sandwiches for the NHS, homeless, needy

This has to be a wind up, surely? For me we only eat caviar on Thursdays, we catch the fish ourselves but never know what to do with the rest of the sturgeon, so throw it away...
seriously, OP. if its not a wind up, grow up and Google a million recipes

After you cook the chicken pick the meat off the legs and marinate in whatever you are going to use them for later in the week eg. korma paste for curry, fajita spices etc. They will have a day or two in the fridge to marinate well. It won’t be much extra work as you can do it when preparing the roast chicken dinner so you’ll be preparing/cooking food anyway.
You’ll soon find loads that you can use them for.

Grow up!
Either
1 you’re just stupid and really think it’s ok to shamelessly waste when there are people going hungry.
or
2 you are so privileged you enjoy winding up others with your boasting about throwing stuff away.
Worse still, an innocent creature was bred and slaughtered for you to pick at its corpse.

@SchrodingersImmigrant it was a medium chicken?

Our children are around 10yrs so their portions are smaller, but yes, it formed an intrinsic part of 15 portions of food! Unless I've confused things by saying meals - I don't mean 15x4 portions worth! I mean one person's meal.

We’re the same in that we only really eat the breast meat. But then I pull off most of the skin, put the carcass with legs, wings etc in a saucepan, cover with cold water, add a good dessert spoon of salt. Boil it for about an hour or so. The. Pour the liquid through a sieve or colander. With the stock add potatoes, carrots, onions, leeks if you have them and fresh parsley. Boil until veg is cold and add some of the leg/ thigh meat back into the soup. Serve with crusty bread and break chunks of cheddar into the soup. Delicious and easy.

You could just scrape off the rest of the meat and have it in sandwiches or reuse it in a meal like fajitas or curry ...like literally anything. I remember my dad saying he used to have cold meat , chips and beans on a Monday too, maybe its a bit boring but its simple x

Ps as others have probably added , you can make a stock with the carcass

@thelonghaul

It amazes me that people do this!!! Why bother with a chicken if you only want breast? What to do with the rest? Almost anything!! Curry, pasta, sandwiches, risotto, paella, stir fry. And please don't start buying crowns. It just means that the rest of the chicken goes to waste earlier in the process.

You must have money to burn and no conscience or consideration of the environment. What are you teaching your kids?!

Is that shaming enough?

Don’t be daft - where do you think the packs of chicken wings/thighs come from?!

It would make more sense to have more crowns available. In smaller shops, you’ll still nearly always find legs/wings, but crowns aren’t so readily available.

I’d much rather have just a crown, as I know it will all get used - and also know that the legs and wings will get bought separately. If I can’t find a crown, then I don’t buy a whole chicken.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I know people here are saying "oh and some can't afford chicken", but honestly, after what I read on MN I think meat is simply too cheap🤷🏻 People are throwing parts away, thinking about throwing it away because it's 5 minutes after use by date and so on. Meat needs to be made more expensive so people treat it right. Chicken can be bought for about 3 in asda or aldi, that's less than toblerone fgs.

It’s a double-edged sword tough. Make it more expensive - on on hand, yes, might make people think more. On the other hand, can lead to more purchases of less healthy food (ie 80p frozen pizzas in Aldi etc). Which isn’t great with trying to encourage healthy eating.

Love a magic chicken thread. So many great ideas. It's easiest to strip the meat off when the chicken is still warm.

And anyone leaving bits out for random passing cats/foxes etc. Though I’m not a fan of it (wouldn’t want my cat eating food from someone else etc), if you are going to do this then make make sure it’s meat only.

Cooked chicken bones can splinter and cause a host of problems if that happens. Raw bones are fine (frozen raw chicken wings can be great for pups when they’re teething, as it can help soothe their gums.

Wow! So wasteful, yes you should be ashamed!!!

Your cook children ....do I need to call the police ....haha ...couldn’t resist a joke !