5 Budget Dinners to Make with a Whole Chicken
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Rayven Perkins
Rayven Perkins is a stay home mom who has put together a resource on MREs, including where to find the best prices for purchasing them. Visit her website at:
Discount MREs By Rayven Perkins
Published on 03/18/2010
With this set of grocery saving tips, learn how to create budget dinners using a whole chicken, the perfect way to create several frugal meals.
For many moms who are looking to create frugal meals, the thought of buying a whole chicken is intimidating. Just what do you do with the darn thing? Sure, you know how to bake a whole chicken, but what else can you do?
These grocery saving tips can help you create 2-3 budget dinners from just one whole chicken! Soon, this will be the only way you purchase poultry. Here are my top 5 budget dinners to make using a whole chicken.
Find the biggest chicken available in your grocery store to make the meat last the longest and to give you the most budget dinners. My favorite thing to do with a whole chicken is to bake it in a crockpot.
Crockpot Baked Chicken
This is an easy, low energy way to have dinner ready at 6pm. The trick to baking a chicken in the crockpot is setting it up on a quartered onion.
Rub your favorite spices (garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, rosemary, cayenne pepper, salt) on the chicken, and put a few pats of butter under the skin. Then place it on top of a quartered onion in the crockpot. Bake on low for 8 hours.
Once dinner is done, save the leftovers and the carcass! They will come in handy for frugal meals later in the week!
Here are some good grocery saving tips: depending on the size of your whole chicken, you should be able to get at least one, and possibly two more meals out of it. Pull any leftover breast meat off the bird and use it for one of the following three budget recipes.
Chicken Tacos
Heat leftover breast meat in a pan with a couple teaspoons of oil. Once it is warm, add in a taco seasoning mix packet. Serve on tortillas with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, black olives and sour cream.
Chicken Alfredo
Make a simple Alfredo sauce by starting a roux with a stick of butter and a quarter cup flour. Add in 2 cups of milk slowly, letting sauce thicken. Add in one 8-ounce package of cream cheese, and after melted, 6 oz Parmesan cheese.
Season with pepper, parsley, and a pinch of nutmeg. Add in leftover chicken pieces and serve over fettuccine noodles.
Chicken Casseroles
Leftover meat from a whole chicken is perfect to use in any chicken casserole recipe you have, and make the best frugal meals! If you don't have a recipe, a good combination is chicken, some sort of vegetable, either rice or a noodle, and a chicken or mushroom soup.
Make sure the noodles or rice are precooked. The secret to a great casserole is to just undercook the pasta or rice, so that when you bake it, it gets completely done. Bake casserole at 350 for 20-30 minutes. The last 5-10 minutes of cooking, add a topping of some sort to your casserole.
The favorite toppings in this house are shredded cheese or fried onion rings. I like to crush up the onion rings when they are going on top.
Chicken Soup
If there is still a little meat on the chicken carcass, you can stretch your money a little further and prepare a chicken noodle soup. Soups are excellent budget dinners. Put the whole carcass back into the crockpot, add a splash of vinegar, and let cook on low overnight.
In the morning, strain the bones out, but make sure you keep the broth! Let the chicken cool for a couple hours and then go through the pile of bones and peel off the pieces of chicken. Put them back into the broth along with some chopped up celery and carrots, and allow to cook in the crockpot on low until dinner.
You can add in a package of egg noodles about a half-hour before serving. A nice salad and a loaf of french bread go perfectly!
These grocery saving tips can help you create 2-3 budget dinners from just one whole chicken! Soon, this will be the only way you purchase poultry. Here are my top 5 budget dinners to make using a whole chicken.
Find the biggest chicken available in your grocery store to make the meat last the longest and to give you the most budget dinners. My favorite thing to do with a whole chicken is to bake it in a crockpot.
Crockpot Baked Chicken
This is an easy, low energy way to have dinner ready at 6pm. The trick to baking a chicken in the crockpot is setting it up on a quartered onion.
Rub your favorite spices (garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, rosemary, cayenne pepper, salt) on the chicken, and put a few pats of butter under the skin. Then place it on top of a quartered onion in the crockpot. Bake on low for 8 hours.
Once dinner is done, save the leftovers and the carcass! They will come in handy for frugal meals later in the week!
Here are some good grocery saving tips: depending on the size of your whole chicken, you should be able to get at least one, and possibly two more meals out of it. Pull any leftover breast meat off the bird and use it for one of the following three budget recipes.
Chicken Tacos
Heat leftover breast meat in a pan with a couple teaspoons of oil. Once it is warm, add in a taco seasoning mix packet. Serve on tortillas with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, black olives and sour cream.
Chicken Alfredo
Make a simple Alfredo sauce by starting a roux with a stick of butter and a quarter cup flour. Add in 2 cups of milk slowly, letting sauce thicken. Add in one 8-ounce package of cream cheese, and after melted, 6 oz Parmesan cheese.
Season with pepper, parsley, and a pinch of nutmeg. Add in leftover chicken pieces and serve over fettuccine noodles.
Chicken Casseroles
Leftover meat from a whole chicken is perfect to use in any chicken casserole recipe you have, and make the best frugal meals! If you don't have a recipe, a good combination is chicken, some sort of vegetable, either rice or a noodle, and a chicken or mushroom soup.
Make sure the noodles or rice are precooked. The secret to a great casserole is to just undercook the pasta or rice, so that when you bake it, it gets completely done. Bake casserole at 350 for 20-30 minutes. The last 5-10 minutes of cooking, add a topping of some sort to your casserole.
The favorite toppings in this house are shredded cheese or fried onion rings. I like to crush up the onion rings when they are going on top.
Chicken Soup
If there is still a little meat on the chicken carcass, you can stretch your money a little further and prepare a chicken noodle soup. Soups are excellent budget dinners. Put the whole carcass back into the crockpot, add a splash of vinegar, and let cook on low overnight.
In the morning, strain the bones out, but make sure you keep the broth! Let the chicken cool for a couple hours and then go through the pile of bones and peel off the pieces of chicken. Put them back into the broth along with some chopped up celery and carrots, and allow to cook in the crockpot on low until dinner.
You can add in a package of egg noodles about a half-hour before serving. A nice salad and a loaf of french bread go perfectly!