Multiple Meals From One Chicken

If you're like me, you want to eat healthy, to feed your family food that nourishes their bodies, but you feel like it is often more expensive to do so.

Did you know that a single pastured chicken could be the foundation for several meals throughout the week? The number depends on how many people you're feeding, of course! For just my husband and me, we'll easily get 5-7 meals' worth from this one nice-sized bird.

This week I got a whole chicken out of the freezer to thaw (put it in the fridge in a big bowl for a couple days), then put it in the crockpot.

I wanted to get as much chicken broth as I could, so I filled the crockpot most of the way up with water. Maybe about an inch from the top...if it's too full, the liquid will probably be more likely to bubble out under the lid.

I didn't even add any seasonings this time, though you could if you wanted. I figured I'd add salt to the broth later when I was ready to use it.

I turned the crockpot on high for an hour or so in the morning until I was ready to leave the house, then turned it down to low before heading out into the cold to do all the farm things.

The time or two I had to go back into the house during the day, I was greeted with quite the tantalizing aroma of that chicken!

When evening came, I used a couple kitchen utensils to remove the whole chicken from the crockpot into a bowl. We forked a bit of the meat off the bones and had chicken with salt and pepper alongside sauteed carrots and zucchini for supper that night.

After supper I deboned the rest of the chicken (it had cooled off a bit by then) and poured the broth into containers, which ended up being almost 3 quarts.

The next night I used some of the broth to cook noodles and peas with some more of the chicken and served that over mashed potatoes.

I am thinking a Mexican chicken and rice casserole (recipe here) is in order for tonight, and I'd probably still have enough for some chicken salad!

Plus I still have 2 quarts of chicken broth left, which I could choose to use for chicken and noodle/rice soup with carrots and celery (might need to choose between using chicken for that or chicken salad, or else make the soup using the broth but no meat), or keep one or both in the freezer for future use! 

I mean, chicken noodle soup is said to cure what ails a person, so it's always nice to have some broth on hand for whipping up a quick pot of soup :)

These are the ideas I came up with. If you have some you'd like to share, let us know! 

Place your order today for farm pickup of some pastured whole chickens.