How I get 4 meals out of 1 chicken!
Take one large chicken which could you either pay full price for or like me wait till they’re on offer or near their sell by date and cost around £3 and buy a few for the freezer!
Sunday night – get it out of the freezer
Monday morning – stick it in the slow cooker (crock pot) with a cup of water and a bit of seasoning if you wish and leave it while you get on with your day.
- Day 1 – Chicken dinner
By evening the chicken should be falling off the bone; I usually take off one breast and the legs and that feeds my family of 6; this week I served it with home-made wedges and a big salad but sometimes I make a full roast dinner.
After dinner take the second breast and wrap it up in cling film, pop it in the freezer
Take a slotted spoon and pull out everything that’s left in the slow cooker; leave the liquid
Get ready to get a bit messy, put your hands in the chicken bits and pull off all the meat you can find, then pop it in a bag and put it in the fridge, you’ll need it tomorrow!
Take the bones and pop them back in the chicken liquid, fill the slow cooker to the top with boiling water, pop the lid on, leave it on low and leave it over night to make a beautiful stock (I then put it in plastic containers the next morning or ice cube trays and keep it in the freezer till I need it).
- Day 2 – Chicken, leek and bacon pie
Make up some homemade pastry and put in the fridge; easy as pie (ha)! Put the chicken bits you bagged up yesterday with some olive oil, some cooking bacon (about 80p from Tesco) and some chopped up leeks along with seasoning in a pan and cook till leeks are soft. Make a white sauce, pour it into the chicken and bacon mix and simmer for a while. Roll out your pastry, make a pie case, pop in your filling, add the pastry lid, prick and cook!
Serve with mashed potatoes and green beans!
If that was too fast for you try this recipe with fancy filo pastry (go on, it’s fine to cheat and buy the pastry, no one is looking!!) yum!
- Day 3 – Vegetable soup (maybe this one?) with homemade bread or served in bread bowls
(Psst, this is where you use that beautiful stock you’ve just made)
- Day 4 – Homemade BBQ chicken pizza
Remember to take that chicken breast out of the freezer the morning of the day you want to make pizza. Throw together some pizza dough; stretch and roll onto your pizza stone or trays as you like it; take BBQ sauce, cheese, chicken, veggies etc. and go to town!
Other suggestions could include:
- chicken salad
- chicken sandwiches
- chicken, sweetcorn and pesto with pasta
Any others?…
I could eek out 2-3 (the roast, the pie and then the soup) but there us no way 1 breast and 2 legs would feed us – you must have some large chested heavy legged chickens in Coventry !!!! 🙂
It has to be a LARGE chicken…and the idea is to have a few filling ‘sides’ so you don’t need huge portions (M & S don’t eat much) of chicken. I can’t do it if I roast the chicken but slow cooking it gets every little bit off the bone…I challenge you to try 4, go on!!
…and you don’t need much for the pie or the pizza as you have other stuff in/on there too; I did all this this week, happy frugal mama (one for the book hey?!) x x
Ok I’ll try 4 this week love a challenge I do 🙂 (made up a fab slow cooker dinner yesterday – just need to give it a name and it can go in the book too ;))
I normally get 3 meals from a chicken, a roast, the following day we get a curry, stirfry or pie, then on the third we get soup or risotto from the stock. It surprises me how many people don’t fully strip a chicken, there is a lot of meat hidden away on the underside etc, and the tiniest bit in the stock goes a long way.
I’m sure as my children get bigger and my two littles ones eat more my chicken meals will reduce to 3!! LOVE getting 4 out of it at the moment.
Thanks for your comments ladies x x
I did it !!! I am amazed at how much more meat comes off when you cook it in the slow cooker – we had chicken with wedges and salad last night, made my stock overnight and now have 2 litres of it in the freezer I used one litre for lunch in butternut squash soup 🙂 I have hickey and mushroom pie sat ready to go in the oven for tea tonight AND the breast left over is HUGE so I have reserved a quarter for a pizza and the rest I have chopped into cubes and reserved for a chicken risotto. The risotto will only be enough to feed the kids but that’s FIVE meals !! Do I win, do I ? Where is my medal ?!!!!! 😉 xxxxxxxx
*chicken and mushroom pie ! Not hickey – what is that ?!!
PS yes you can say ‘I told you so’ 🙂
TOLD YOU SO!! Hee hee 🙂
Have my chicken in the slow cooker today – do I have to try for 6 meals hahaha
Hey Leah, I like your blog. I am a huge fan of my slow cooker, but haven’t done a whole chicken in it; I followed this from Sarah’s facebook page. Might try it too – I usually just slow roast in the oven and if I can be bothered, I make chicken and veg soup afterwards. Living in a house of carnivores means chicken doesn’t normally go beyond one meal, sometimes two, but I might try this!
By the way, I hope it is leeks, not leaks you are cooking!
Hi Grace! Nice to hear from you – It doesn’t work the same with roasted chicken…you ask Lucy (see her comments) but slow cooking it helps EVERY last little bit of meat fall off!
Take the chicken challenge and let us know how you get on…
Leah x