Cheaper (& More Delicious) Chicken

Let me start this post by saying, I have come a long way in my relationship with meat in the kitchen – specifically preparing it, and even more specifically preparing chicken.  When I was much younger, I would have to leave the room, gagging with much drama, while my mom cut up chicken meat, pulling off the skin and extracting bones, etc.  I did NOT want to see that horrifying process.  However, chicken is an extremely versatile protein source and one of the more healthy choices of meat. Because of those reasons, we use chicken in many different ways in our house. But I DO want my chicken to have nothing questionable in it, so I have learned over time to pluck out the weird things best left unexamined, and pull off the bits of skin left on the “skinless” chicken breasts, etc.  

I do not, however, roast my own whole chicken.  I know that I can, as I did do it once very early on in our married life.  I still remember feeling queasy while removing the bag of ook from the inside of the chicken.  Eww.  But I don’t choose to roast my own because I don’t really see the benefit in this process when I can get an enormously flavorful bang for my buck with a Costco rotisserie chicken. 

There are one or two other food bloggers who have written posts listing reasons to roast your own chicken, such as crispy chicken skin, moister meat and flexibility in flavor additions.  But there is also an almost cult-like following of people like me who love this chicken in all of it’s delicious, golden glory.  I never eat the skin anyway, and I find this chicken incredibly moist and delicious.  As a busy mom chronically stretched for time, this chicken is the bomb.

These birds are roasted fresh each day and are a particularly plump variety of chicken.  For a mere $4.99, I can get a 3 lb.+ chicken that feeds our family of 4 at least 3 meals. What’s not to love about that?  After my most recent trip to Costco, I paid close attention to how much meat I pulled off my chicken.  One breast alone turned into 3 cups of shredded chicken.  Oh, the possibilities!  

The first meal of chicken was simply delicious, warm chicken straight up.  My girls each had a leg and some breast meat as their after school snack, or what we call second lunch in our house.  They come home absolutely ravenous and attempt to eat me out of house and home.  But I digress….

Another meal I made from the same chicken was easy chicken taquitos.  I used a mix of white and dark meat combined with cheese, green chilies, and corn with some cumin and rolled up the mixture into corn tortillas, sprayed them with cooking spray and baked them for about 25 minutes.  Delicious, simple and easily customizable.

The third meal I made from our incredible edible chicken was homemade chicken salad.  And truth be told, this chicken salad was really about 3 meals in itself.  We ate it on squishy ciabatta style rolls for dinner one evening, and the rest went into lunches at least twice throughout the week.  

My chicken salad recipe is another recipe that is more like a guideline.  I start by stripping the meat off the chicken.  It sounds a bit barbaric, but my preferred method for this is just pulling it off with my hands.  See?  I really have some a long way with meat in the kitchen. I discard the skin and fatty bits as I go.

For this particular recipe, you will only need about 3 cups of chicken, so you can divide up the rest of the meat for other uses.  Generally speaking, you can keep fresh cooked chicken in the fridge for 3-4 days.

One key ingredient in my chicken salad is toasted pecans.  I toast mine for about 5 minutes at 350º, until they literally smell toasty and nutty.  Incidentally, I also buy my pecans at Costco.  They are beautiful pecan halves and they come in a 2 lb. bag for about $14.99.  That’s a pretty good price for quality nuts.

I use grapes most often, but you can also use dried cherries or cranberries as alternatives. Or you can throw in some chopped up apple, too.

You can use all mayo or use a mix of yogurt, plain or Greek.  The yogurt adds a little tang and ups the health factor as well, but it will taste great however you make it.

If you try this recipe and make it your own, I’d love to hear about it.

AuthorMelissa JoyDifficultyBeginner