How to use Every Bit of Leftover Roast Chicken
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There’s been a fair bit of foodie talk recently about how many meals a responsible adult can get out of a roast chicken. The highest I have heard posited is 40! Well I don’t know about that but I do know a handy trick to get every single scrap of meat off the leftover roast chicken carcass. Read on.
My normal behaviour with a whole chicken is to roast it for our dinner. My real man has a leg and a wing and I have a few slices of breast. As is normal for us, we have different accompaniments – he has homemade stuffing, homemade bread sauce, homemade sloppy peas, sausage meat, potatoes, veggies and real gravy whilst I have butternut squash and red onion roasted with a little chilli!
The next day he has the same meal again and I have something including leftover chicken and leftover roasted squash such as a risotto or, if I haven’t eaten all my dinner the night before, I mix all leftovers together, into a cake and fry it. So long as you have some potato, other starcy vegetables or cooked beans it is easy make lovely fritters using leftover chicken.
On the third day I normally dice the second, uncut breast and mix with some leftover gravy to make a pie for my darling.
How to completely strip a roast chicken carcass …
~ After the above kind of meals bung all the rest of the chicken including skin, bones, flesh and any goo, into a saucepan with a lid and add about 1½ inches (4 cm) of cold water.
~ Bring to a boil over medium heat, turn down the heat to low, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. During this time turn the carcass once so that all of it gets a go in the water.
~ Turn off the heat and allow to sit for 20 minutes or so.
~ Use tongs to lift the carcass out of the pan and set in a bowl or on a plate to cool a little.
~ While it is still pleasantly warm manually (yes, with your clean hands) remove every single scrap of edible meat. This is NOT unpleasant and DOESN’T take long.
~ Keep the broth – it will be a pretty golden colour and lightly flavoured. It is not a true rich chicken stock but is prettier and better than water to use in any soups or sauces you might be making.
To get you in the mood here’s a gruesome pic of a carcass I stripped earlier, have yourself a zoom, I don’t think you’ll find much I’ve missed!
Chicken and Leek Soup
The next day I make soup with the resulting broth; see here for my Leek and Potato Soup recipe and add chicken.
Ideas for Leftover Roast Chicken
If you still have some chicken left here are some suggestions …
~ Stir through lovely creamy Alfredo Sauce and serve on pasta, maybe add some sautéed mushrooms and top the dish with quick, easy and crunchy pangrattato! Other pasta sauces work well with chicken too.
~ Add to stir fries, curries and salads.
~ Top pizza with shredded chicken – here’s a good pizza dough recipe, you could spread it with gravy instead of tomato sauce, if you have some!
~ Chicken Patties – mix together approximately equal amounts of chopped cooked chicken and mashed potato. Season to taste till it is just how you like it (I often add something spicy), form into cakes and chill for 30 minutes. Coat in flour or breadcrumbs or some other dried coating and shallow fry till hot and crisp and delicious.
~ Coronation Chicken Thing – there are numerous variations of this ‘classic’ dish.. The basic idea is to make a curry mayonnaise – a little curry paste, a little mango chutney, stir in fresh lime juice and perhaps lighten it with Greek yogurt. Fold in leftover chicken and garnish with fresh coriander. I think toasted almonds are traditional too.
~ Chicken sandwiches. Here’s a sandwich made with leftover chicken and leftover butternut squash from above – the bread is spread with mayonnaise. See here for 38 ways to flavour mayonnaise, pretty well all of which would go well in a chicken sarnie!
The above ideas will also work for leftover bought in rotisserie chicken.
This is, of course, nothing like 40 meals, it is 10-ish and at £5 or so for a reasonable 2kg chicken that’s about 50p per meal plus a few nibbles.
Leftover Roast Chicken Fat and Skin
See here for how to use leftover roast chicken
fat and skin in delightful ways.
By the way all this applies to leftover roast turkey too!
Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers
Lots more ideas for leftovers throughout this blog and in my book …
Suzy Bowler
Having been a somewhat itinerant chef for over 30 years I was amazed, on my return to the UK, at the blatant food waste that now seems to be rife in the country; amazed and irritated. So much so that I decided to start a blog about spontaneous cooking from leftovers to show people that there are great alternatives to throwing food away.
2 Comments
Suzy - Sudden Lunch
Yeah, that's true. I usually do that with a turkey. Thank you.
Dc
The only thing I do differently is to roast the bones and remains once stripped. These bones then go back into the stock for another slow simmer. Really, really lifts the flavour!