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!

Make stock from the carcass - no better base for soup.
It needs to cook for an hour or more but is definitely worth it. Does stink out the house a bit but it will be so much better than just using bought stock cubes, you still need a stock cube but give this a try.
Add leek, carrot, onion, kale, pudding rice (handful).

BTW I think modern chicken breast meat is very soggy and mushy. The legs and thighs have the best meat !

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)

That’s not 15 meals! It’s three meals, one of which is soup.

@PinkyParrot

Make stock from the carcass - no better base for soup. It needs to cook for an hour or more but is definitely worth it. Does stink out the house a bit but it will be so much better than just using bought stock cubes, you still need a stock cube but give this a try. Add leek, carrot, onion, kale, pudding rice (handful).

Yes, it is a bit pervasive, which is why an electric pressure cooker like an instant pot is so brilliant for stock as all the small is contained.

Shred the leftovers - mix in with barbecue sauce and make chicken tacos. We have taco shells, sour cream, homemade salsa and guacamole and cheddar with the chicken and everyone makes their own.

Works really well with pulled pork too.

That’s really disgusting. Just buy breasts if you want to only eat breasts. How gross and wasteful.

If I have a chicken. We have a roast, the kids will have the drumsticks. I’ll pull some meat off for chicken Mayo sandwiches and lob the rest in a pot to make stock. The rest I lob out in the field and then watch the buzzards, cries and magpies benefit from the rest.

My tip would be to pull the meat off when the carcass is at room temperature it's easier than when it's been chilled and also takes up less room in the fridge!

I'm not keen on the darker meat when it's cold either. Montyman's suggestion sounds really nice though, being lazy, I think I'll miss out the egg and just toss the meat in seasoned cornflour. Fried til crisp with home made wraps, salad, sweetcorn and mayo would be lovely.

@JohnMiddleNameRedactedSwanson

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)

That’s not 15 meals! It’s three meals, one of which is soup.

well obviously that one is the famous MumsNet chicken.

@EmmaGrundyForPM more like a MN swan!!

Yum chicken legs! I just eat them as they are..no plate/knife/fork...like a caveman!

@JohnMiddleNameRedactedSwanson and @EmmaGrundyForPM yes sorry - I realised afterwards this terminology was a poor choice 😂

As I said in my previous post I meant 15 meals for one person & the point I was trying to make was that it went a long way!

I got it as 15 portions and tbh I still don't get how mwdium, so 1.4kg? Makes 9 portions (minus stock). As I said. My fat arse is being ashamed😂

The legs and thighs are the best bit!! That in itself is criminal!

Anything left from our roast chicken gets diced up and put in ramen.

The carcass gets put in the slowcooker and either makes a batch of chicken stock for the freezer or more often the kids beg for it to be used for chicken noodle soup.

The soft bones then get blended for the pets.

The only thing to go in the bin from our roast is the thigh bones.

Wasting so much chicken meat as some do is quite an appalling example to show kids too.

Strip chicken chop meat add mayo and spoonful of chutney.
Great with nice slab of bread.

A chicken sandwich? Really you are too lazy to do even that??? You need someone to think of that for you? You need someone OUTSIDE your family of four to say ‘make a chicken sandwich???
Or chicken salad?
Or warmed up in the microwave and have the same meal again?
Or a quick chicken pot pie? Or shred it and freeze it until you have the wherewithal to google ‘what can I do with left over roast chicken’? 🙄

Chicken pie!

Pick all the chicken meat off by hand after dinner, while it's still warm, all the way around the chicken, including the back (I wear plastic gloves as hate the greasy chicken smell that stays on my hands after).

I make the pie filling while I'm doing the roast dinner as already chopping/cooking, then portion it and freeze it and use mid week for a quick dinner, just need to take it out the night before then after work put it in a dish and cover with shop bought ready rolled puff pastry. You could leave the chicken in the fridge overnight and do it the next day.

Preheat oven to 200 c
For pie filling:
First make a white sauce (I cut a finger width bit off the block of butter, heat in a pan, add a heaped tablespoon and a bit of plain flour, then add milk gradually, whisking, until it looks like a white sauce)

Chop 1 onion, carrot and celery. In a saucepan fry off a tub of bacon lardons, when nice and browned add the chopped veg, cook until softened, add the white sauce and (after dinner) the chicken, stir it scraping off the bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Either let it cool and freeze, or transfer to a shallow dish, cover with pastry and bake for 40 minutes.

One of our favourites

My favourite is taking the rest of the chicken off the bones, chop it up add mayonnaise and a chopped gherkin and serve in a wrap.

A agree that pie is the absolute pinnacle of chicken leftovers.

More faff than some of the other options but so, so worth it

I live on my own but buy free range, cut the meat from the carcass. I make stock from the carcass , adding veg. I freeze the stock and meat in portions. I love a chicken stew with chorizo. I don't mind cold chicken either. I make Coronation chicken sometimes.

God I just read the thread title and thought it said "throw away the children". I need to go back to bed.

@fluffyhood Its lazy and wasteful but you've already admitted that and asked for tips so I'm not going to shame you any more.

I no longer eat meat but when I did, I only 'liked' chicken breasts. When I lived alone I bought chicken breasts; they don't taste the same as when they're from the whole roast but it never crossed my mind to buy a whole chicken and throw the rest away.

When I came back from uni and moved home I wanted to buy my own chicken breasts for my portions. My mum asked me what did I think I'd been eating in curries etc over the years because she used the whole chicken- and she was right. A mix of white and dark meat in a curry and I would eat it.

One comment about your dog- you say you give her a weekly portion of chicken or she wouldn't eat her food the rest of the time. Have you thought about giving chicken with all meals but less if it? You can freeze very small portions ready to take out and stir through. My dogs won't eat their dry food if nothing is added to it. But rather than a larger 'weekly' portion they have a small amount of meat in with their food every meal (with dried food reduced slightly accordingly). One of my dogs has a sensitive stomach and is very fussy but it's such a small amount of meat- it causes her no issues. At least the meat wouldn't be wasted this way.

I asked my butcher about a crown, he'll do me one with wings attached and I can buy the legs as well but the rest will be thrown away buy him as there's nothing he can do with it.
This seems worse than what I do now because I make stock with the bones.

None of the supermarket ones seem to be free range.

Apologies for the wrong use of buy