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!

Imagine not enjoying a tasty morsel of cold roast chicken from the fridge. Little sprinkle of salt and blob of mayo.

@Fluffyhood

I totally get everyone saying just buy the breasts, to be honest I buy a whole chicken with the intention of using more than just the breasts but just never get around to it! I dont mind the leg meat at all but there's enough for me with the breast so I just end up having breast meat. Thanks for the suggestions keep them coming!

Plus I know it will sound mad but the meat from a whole chicken seems to taste so much better than the prepackaged breasts?

It's because you're cooking on the bone. All meat even fish tastes better cooked on the bone.

Am actually distressed by your wastefulness. People in this country going to food banks and here you are just chucking nearly a whole chicken away with gay abandon.

Is this a piss take?

That's nothing anyway, once I've made two pots of stock with my chicken bones, I then blend them to make organic face scrub.

Also family of four and you're splitting two breasts between you? My two year old has at least half a breast, dh a breast and more... I couldn't feed my family of 2 and a half people on that 😅

We have the breasts then rest to the dog not on the bone though for him

I think that’s an embarrassing admission. When you think there’s so much poverty in the world and you’re binning perfectly good meat because you can’t be arsed to think of something to do. I buy either a nice free range chicken from the butchers or supermarket and it costs me £13. I will use the leftovers for curry, stir fry, a chunky soup ( add noodles) or a chicken & leek pie recipe I have with a crunchy quinoa topping. You can essentially add the cooked chicken to lots of recipes... risotto etc. I’m amazed you don’t get foxes going through your food waste bin or does it go in the normal bin where you are?

My DD is only 1 so she's not eating a large portion, there is plenty of meat for the 3 of us (DS is 13)

This is really making me see how wasteful I am, I wont be throwing it away next week until I've used it all trust me!

Shred the meat off the bone and reheat it with chopped tomatoes add some chilli flakes and seasoning then grate some cheese into it whilst it's hot. Sandwich in mini subs or ciabatta bread or even just on toast if you really can't be bothered.

We used to have pie.

Cut up leftover chicken meat along with any other leftovers (veg / potatoes and stuffing). Keep the gravy too.

Put bones in pot of water with an onion, carrot, celery and boil to make a stock.

Then fry the leftover chicken and veg in a little butter, add a little flour and cook off. Then add some white wine. Reduce down a bit. Add stock, and gravy. Cook for 20 minutes or so on the hob and then pop in a pie dish and top with pastry and cook for another 20 minutes in the oven.

It is the best. Better than the original roast chicken.

Jesus, what an absolute waste of food and money. If you only like breast meat then you should buy breasts and cook them. When we make a roast we use the leftovers for (off the top of my head):

• sandwiches
• chicken and bacon pie with mash topping
• chicken fajitas
• soup (added bonus that you can make the base with the carcass)
• curries
• stir fry
• pasta with some pesto and veggies

Not all from one roast of course but we can make a chicken do several meals. Get on Pinterest or googs and you'll find loads of ideas.

I feed the legs to the dog

I love the smell of chicken stock wafting through the house

🤮 I detest the smell of chicken cooking so that would be me hurling for England!

Oooh, I love a good chicken thread.

Seriously? I’m bloody vegetarian , yet I can still find plenty of things to make for my kids with the leftover chicken.

They normally have:
Stir fry rice with chicken
Chicken with pasta and pesto
Chicken with bacon and pasta with cheesy sauce
Chicken quesadillas
Chicken curry
Chicken sandwiches for lunch.

Not all in one week because it ain’t a magic chicken.

Chucking away half a roast chicken is obscene.

You don't even need to cook what's left over! Why not just take what's left, split into sections put on a plate in fridge and eat the next day w sides for an easy lunch? Jeez it doesn't take much effort!

Honestly this is so annoying and wasteful. If you won't eat it all then buy a crown.

There are loads of things you can do with leftover chicken, you know this. To have an animal endure 6 weeks of hell to have probably 50% of it thrown away because you can't be arsed is disgusting. I'm not a vegan or a vegetarian. I keep my oen chickens for their eggs and they are funny, comical little things, all with different personalities. I never buy eggs and if I buy chicken it's free range and I use all of it. To do anything else is a waste. If you eat meat on a Monday as well, even worse because you can make a perfectly good meat based meal from that thrown away meat.

None of us like legs, thighs, dark meat. Yes I know it's tastier, juicer yada yada but yuck.

I pan fry skin on breasts and finish in the oven or get a crown.

I know a mn chicken feeds a family all week 😂😂😂

Seriously tho how does it feed 4 of you and have extra

Having 1/2 a breast each

I'm quite lazy too but we either use it for sandwiches or if there's enough we have it cold the next day with jacket potatoes or garlic bread and salad.

Go to a real butcher and buy chicken supremes-breast but with wing attached ... perfect

Okay, I’ll admit I’m a freak but I used to do similar and now I do the complete opposite, but I have a technique!

We roast the chicken and it feeds four of us. Then I put it in the fridge and ignore it till the next day. Then I put it back in the oven and cook it just long enough for everything to go yummy and crispy. Then I take off the meat that’s now hot and crunchy and have that with my lunch. Then I put it back in the fridge. Then the following day I take it back out, turn it over and cook the underside. So that goes all crunchy and hot and I eat the underside with my lunch, and then I bin it (it’s my dirty secret, no one knows I do this 😳).

@justanotherneighinparadise you’re not reheating it twice are you

I cut the legs off while the chicken is raw, separate the drumsticks and thighs and freeze them if I don't have any plans to use them straight away.

I then roast the legless bird for roast dinner and use the legs and thighs for something like paella or Nando’s style marinated chicken later on, I find its nicer cooked this way rather than using leftover cooked meat.

I hope your suitably ashamed and inspired OP. There were people who did the same as you on that Hugh FW programme a few years ago. People who were claiming to only able to afford the cheapest available chicken but then wasted half of what they bought. You couldn't make it up.

I’d use some breast and some dark meat for the roast so I wouldn’t just have leg meat left. We’d either have it cold with chips and coleslaw or I’d make fried rice. I’d usually have a chicken and stuffing sandwich for lunch too. I wouldn’t use roast chicken to make fajitas or stew or curry or similar, I’d use raw chicken.

Delia Smith's left over Turkey curry recipe works just as well with chicken.