stretch chicken

Buying a whole chicken can be an intimidating occurrence if you were raised on boneless, skinless chicken breasts like I was. Never fear, friends, this post (and a few more to follow) is dedicated to how to cook that bird and how to stretch out your chicken over multiple meals.

My favorite way to start off with a whole chicken is to roast the bird. I will share my favorite recipe another time (we’ve got to keep you coming back right?), but picture the Norman Rockwell roasted bird with juicy meat and delectable, crisp skin. After dinner, take a few minutes to pick off all the leftover meat. Picking chicken meat isn’t rocket science, just as much of it off as you can. Then put the bones and meat in separate containers in the fridge. Or, if you are going to make soup or chicken and noodles, just set it all aside and simmer the meat and bones together “stock style”, which I’ll explain shortly.

Come time to use the leftovers, you have a few choices. You could use the chopped chicken for any number dishes: chicken salad, chicken pot pie, enchiladas, etc. If you decide to do this, don’t throw away those valuable bones! Instead, put them in a pot (or a crockpot); cover them with water; add a few spices, a splash of vinegar, and some finely chopped carrots, onions and celery; cover with a tight lid; and let them simmer for at least 24 hours (30-36 is even better). As the bones simmer, you might need to add more water, but when you’ve strained it, you will have an amazing chicken stock that fancy-pant chefs would drool over. I often freeze this stock in 1-3 cup servings for when a recipe calls for chicken broth.

Let me take a brief moment to extole the wonders of a good stock. Stocks are the base to many good recipes, and a well-made stock can enhance a recipe better than any bullion cube. A good stock is also extremely nutritious and complex in flavor. It contains minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium from bone, marrow, cartilage in the form of electrolytes, which are easy to digest and assimilate (hence the famous chicken soup for the sickie). Modern research has confirmed that gelatin-rich broth helps prevent and mitigate infectious diseases. The key to a healthy stock is found in its abundance of gelatin. You know that a stock is rich in gelatin when you cool the broth in the fridge and it thickens and gels. In my experience, many supermarket chickens won’t gel, no matter how long you cook them, because they lack sufficient bone minerals.

So there you have it. A whole Arnold Acres chicken can feed a family many times over!