…a whole chicken.
When working with mom’s one of the first easy changes to make is to buy a whole chicken for things like chicken soup, casseroles, and salads instead of boneless skinless chicken breasts. Chicken breasts average $5.99 a lb but can be found at Costco in 10 lb bags for $2 each. And occasionally go on sale for less than that at the regular store. I buy chicken breasts at these low prices, but cook them like a steak since they are one of our more expensive meats.
Whole chickens on the other hand can be found at Aldi every day for $.79 a lb and go on sale for $.59 a lb! When I’m going to cut up a chicken for enchiladas, casseroles, or cold chicken salad anyway, I use the most affordable meat on the market. A whole chicken is easy to deal with, and there are 3 different ways to cook it. The first, boiling it, is one of my favorites because it also yields 4 quarts of yummy chicken broth to use in recipes. If you prefer you can roast it in the oven or the slow cooker, and when adding root vegetables to the pot, you end up with a one dish meal. In the picture above, I roasted 3 chickens at once so I could freeze the meat for fast meal solutions later.
Whole chicken with Broth
16 cups of water
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 onion, chopped fine (Or 1 Tablespoon onion powder)
2 ribs of celery, chopped fine (Or one teaspon celery seed)
1 whole chicken (Thawed and the gible bag removed from the inside.)
Combine all in a large stock pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 3 hours. Use a slotted spoon to remove the chicken to a platter to cool. Strain the broth and set in the fridge when cool. Usually by this point quite a bit of water has cooked out of the broth, so I add more to get back to 16 cups. Once the broth has chilled, the fat will harden on the top and you can remove it easil if you prefer to cook with fat free broth. Then ladle the broth into freezer jars and freeze in recipe size portions for future use.
When the chicken has cooled, gather two large bowls. Use your fingers to separate the meat from the bones. I put the bones, skin, and other unwanted parts in one bowl, and the meat in the other. Then coarsely chop the meat and place 2 cup portions into freezer bags and freeze.
Roast Chicken
There are lots of different herb variations for roasting a chicken. I previously shared one of my favorites here. (There’s also a lovely lemon rub recipe in the Slow and Savory cookbook.) In the link above, I showed how to cook 3 chickens at once, but if you prefer to do one and make it a meal. Also add 2 peeled whole carrots, 1.5 peeled potatoes, 2 ribs of celery cut into 1 inch pieces, and a sliced onion to the roasting pan. Follow the same cooking instructions as in the link.
Slow Cooker Chicken
Follow the preparation instructions above, then cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-8 hours.
Update: I boiled a chicken today that was 5.06 lbs. I got a gallon of broth and 6 cups of cubed meat. The meat weighed 1 lb 15 oz and the bones and skin weighed 1 lb 5 oz which means 1 lb 12 oz of the chicken was moisture that went into the broth. I haven’t cooked and weighed chicken breasts yet, but let’s pretend they would have the same amount of moisture loss:
5 lbs of chicken breasts at $2 a lb would cost $10 with a net result of 3 lbs 4 oz of meat and a final price of $3.08 a lb
5lb of whole chicken at $.79 a lb cost $3.95 with a net result of 1 lb 15 oz of meat and a final price of $2.03 a lb. At $.59 a lb for the whole chicken it’s $1.52 a lb
It’s worth it to pay for the extra bones and skin (it makes a healthier broth) because the net result is still less expensive meat. The least expensive I have seen boneless skinless chicken breasts was $1 a lb. The price of the actual meat becomes $1.65 a lb. It is still less expensive to buy a whole chicken at $.59 a lb, but barely so at that point.
the homemade chicken broth from cooking your own chickens is such a bonus. Have you price it lately? about $2 a quart at Walmart and it is full of sodium. We use a lot of chicken broth so the chicken meat is almost a bonus with the broth .
Thank you so much! I bought two whole chickens on sale last week and was kind of at a loss of what to do with them. I was planning on spending time browsing for recipes. Now I have them! 🙂
Whole chickens can also go into the crockpot frozen if you prep it before you put it in the freezer (rinse, dry, pull out any “extras”). If you didn’t prep it before going in the freezer, an overnight thaw in the fridge is usually enough to allow you to do that before putting in the crock. I plop mine in on low at about 10am and by about 4 it’s done. (I used to worry about this not being safe, but then I saw it in a reputable cookbook. We’ve never had a problem.)
I’ve been thinking about buying whole chickens versus chicken drums this week. How many cups of meat would you estimate you could get from a 6-8 lb chicken if you boiled it? I’ve heard it is 3 1/2 cups but that seems very low to me.
Karen, I usually get 4 cups from a 4-5 lb chicken. I’m getting ready to cook one now. I’ll let you know. I plan to weigh it also and see how much cooked meat I get. I’ll have to cook a lb of chicken breasts and see how much cooked meat that results also and compare the prices then.
Thanks, that would be great!
How long does the chicken stock last if you don’t freeze it? Can you refridgerate it for a few days if you plan to use it or should we immediately freeze? Can you recommend some freezer jars?
Brandi, The broth is good for about 3 days (I’ve let it go 5 and it was okay.) I use regular quart canning jars with 2 piece lids to freeze, and leave an extra head space for the liquid to expand during freezing. I broke a jar once by not leaving enough space. You can also freeze the broth in clean cottage cheese containers.
When freezing chicken; I like to pack my chicken pieces in containers and add enough broth to just cover. It doesn’t get dried out that way if you tend to miss stuff in the freezer for a while. This works great with ham too. I save the juice from cooking the ham; I have to add water to it to make enough broth to cover all my containers, but it works great to save ham for soups ( I don’t drain it when using it).
This looks like something I can easily manage. I’m just starting to get reacquainted with the kitchen. How big was the chicken in this recipe? What size slow cooker would you recommend? This looks gerat. Love and hugs from Oregon, Heather 🙂
Heather I recommend a 5 quart oval shaped slow cooker. These chickens were 5 lbs, which seems about average. Check out the update at the end.
I buy whole chickens frequently. Recently at United (our local grocery store) they had them at $.59 a lbs so I stocked up. I cook them up and use them in so much! I also use the bones and skin left over to make broth (just put whatever is left in the crockpot, break the bones you can to expose the marrow, add water until the crockpot is about 3/4 full, and cook on low for 12hrs.) I haven’t bought chicken broth in a long time! Thanks for sharing the wonders of buying whole chickens with everyone!
As far as freezing the broth, what would be a standard recipe portion? This will be the first whole chicken I have ever cooked, so I have much to learn. Thanks.
Most storebought cans of broth are just shy of 2 cups, but the cardboard cartons are 4 cups (or a quart.) I freeze mine in quart size jars since we are a big family. When you cook with broth, how much do your recipes call for?
At this point, I don’t cook much, so I had no idea.
Thanks.
I haven’t tried the whole chicken and broth thing yet. We only have one grocery store in town and their price is almost $1 a pound. That seems a lot to me. Once it goes on sale, I will stock up though and try it.
I have made turkey stock though with my turkey carcass after thanksgiving and I froze the stock in my 1-cup container. I have two of them, so I filled both of them, and as soon as they were frozen through I put them in a zip lock baggie and refilled the cups for freezing. I did this until all the stock was frozen. Worked pretty well for me.
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