Remember my post about making the whole chicken in the crockpot? Well, I did as Susannah suggested and froze the leftover broth in ice cube trays and they’ve come in handy a couple of times now. There wasn’t a ton, but what I did get has been delicious in things like rice and pasta dishes. YUM!
And since a whole chicken is way too much for my family to eat at one meal (unless it’s tiny) we were treated to plenty of leftovers. To date, I’ve:
- used them in a chicken sandwich.
- mixed them with leftover pasta (we ate all of the spaghetti sauce last night, but had extra cooked pasta) and diced tomatoes and a bit of Italian dressing for a super delicious and quick lunch.
- put them in a quesadilla.
I think I finally finished them up today, but that was a fairly small chicken (less than 10 lbs) and I got an entire family meal out of it, as well as several lunches and some delicious stock that we’ve used in different meals. With whole chickens being so inexpensive (I’ve seen them as low as $.69/lb, so the one we have would have been less than $7 at the store on sale.) this is a great way to stretch your food dollar but still include healthier meats like chicken in your diet.
Next time I see them on sale for $.69/lb I’m going to buy several and freeze them, then make one every couple of weeks so that we have stock and leftovers available regularly. I think they’ll be a great Sunday dinner…just toss one in the crockpot before we leave for church, add some mashed potatoes or green beans, a salad, and some rolls, and we have a great meal on a day that is typically rather chaotic. Plus some really versatile leftovers!
Murphy Bites. Hard. « I am the Mama
August 3, 2010 at 3:10 pm
[...] ruined was our dinner (and dinner for the next several nights as well…you know how I like to stretch those chickens) and maybe the pot, but we’re trying to salvage that. This, of course, led to us having to [...]