52 Weeks of Chicken Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How many meals can you get out of a whole chicken? ›

1 Chicken = 5 Meals (All gluten free, by the way!)

This would go well served over rice or mashed white or sweet potatoes! I'd love to hear about your ideas of how to stretch a whole chicken and some of your favorite chicken dishes!

From a 1.5 kg organic bird, I'd usually get at least 23 meals. We both like the leg and thigh when freshly roasted, part of the breast might end up in chicken pies, or noodle soup, or a nachos sauce, or Caesar salad, or fried rice, or curry sauce, or ensalada Mixta, or sandwiches. Bones etc go into the next stock.

These old-fashioned reared chickens live, as the label says, for 100 days minimum, some up to 114 days, compared to a commercial bird which only lives for 40 to 45 days. Our 100 day birds live outside, running about.

You can get a surprising amount of meat from the wings and carcass. Check the along the backbone and collar. Shredded chicken meat is amazing in pies - adapt a traditional Greek chicken and rice pie recipe to make the most of every last morsel. You can also use this meat in another salad or soup.

While chicken can be a versatile and convenient protein to cook, if your diet doesn't have a diverse protein profile, you lose out on some key nutrients—including essential fats, such as omega-3s. "Eating chicken every day as your sole protein source could result in some nutrient gaps," says Burgess.

After dissembling a whole chicken, you should end up with 8 pieces: two breasts, two thighs, two drumsticks, and two wings. See tips below on how to use the leftover carcass. With the chicken breast side up, run a sharp knife down the center of the breasts and slice down, splitting in two.

Step 4: Roast the first chicken and get 5 meals out of it.

Meal 5: Eat the roasted chicken with several side dishes as your meal for the night, but be sure that there is plenty of meat left to use for other meals. Meals 6-8: After you eat, shred and/or cube the rest of the chicken that you can take off the carcass.

On average, a laying hen eats about ¼-pound of feed per day or 1.5 pounds of feed per week. If you're buying a 50-pound bag of feed, it would feed your chicken for about 33 weeks. If you have four hens in your flock, eating about 6 pounds of feed a week, you'll go through a 50-pound bag of feed about every 8 weeks.

A whole 3 to 4-pound chicken will feed 4 to 6 people, depending on ages and appetite.

The majority of chickens raised in America are bred for fast growth and high yields, which means they have been genetically modified over time to grow larger with less feed. This often leads to less flavorful meat, as well as an increase in fat.

Is my chicken too old to eat? ›

Cooked and raw chicken can be stored from a few days up to a year. The amount of time that it lasts can vary depending on whether it's frozen or refrigerated. Chicken is considered a staple meat in many households. However, this healthy and delicious source of protein has a high risk of bacterial contamination.

It may be hard to tell if the chicken meat has gone bad if it was marinated or made with herbs, spices or sauces. Sometimes, spoiled chicken meat may not give any hints of spoilage. It may look, smell and taste the same. Your best bet is to use the three- to four-day timeline as your guide.

Marinate them.

If you're cooking chicken breasts without skin or fat, infuse them with some extra flavor and liquid to keep them tender. Choose your favorite marinade and throw them in a ziploc bag with the marinade. Marinate them overnight before grilling, baking, or searing. The difference is uncanny.

Marinating is good for flavouring and tenderising your chicken at the same time. It's best to marinate your chicken overnight to give the flavours plenty of time to infuse. A faster way to add flavour is to simply brine your chicken in salty water prior to cooking.

Buying whole chickens

A typical broiler chicken with a live weight of 6 pounds should give you 4.5 to 5 pounds of meat.

I am sharing how I take one Costco Rotisserie Chicken and turn it into 5 meals for my husband and me. That's FIVE MEALS, not five servings! Plus, I use my InstantPot to make a delicious chicken soup from the bones, so technically that's SIX meals! And no, they aren't chintzy, starvation diet-sized meals.