Budget Series: 3 Ways to Use a Whole Chicken

Cook a whole chicken? Sure, it’s more budget friendly, but… how and what do you do with it?

This month, we’ll be kickstarting a budgeting series with a few different ways to use a whole chicken. Trust me, it’s actually super easy, and I think it saves more time! Per pound, the price of a whole chicken is much more budget-friendly than getting parts. For example, thighs are going for $14.00 per pound, but a whole chicken is $6.50 per pound!

There will be four parts to this blog series. This week, we’ll learn how easy it is to roast a pasture-raised chicken that isn’t dry and tasteless. Get ready to save on time and money!

Easy Roasted Whole Chicken

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (I used a 5.5 lb chicken)

2 Tbsp butter, melted

Salt and pepper to taste

4 garlic cloves, whole

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

2. Place a roasting rack in a 9x13 pan (optional, but helps the chicken get a crispier skin). Pat your chicken dry with a paper towel and place breast side down on the rack. Using a pastry brush, spread the melted butter all over the chicken, then sprinkle with salt and pepper (you can also get creative and do a few different seasonings or herbs, like thyme, paprika, etc.). Next, place your garlic cloves inside the cavity of the chicken.

3. Set the pan on the middle rack of your oven. Roast the chicken for about 1.5 hours (about 16 minutes per lb), or until the thermometer reads 160 in the breast and 165 in the thigh. Make sure to stick the thermometer in the meatiest part of the breast or thigh! As always, go by the temperature rather than the time - the time can vary, so you really want to be paying attention to the temp so you don’t overcook.

*If you have a smaller chicken, the time will be less for it to fully cook, so adjust the time by multiplying the total weight of the chicken by 16 minutes, and that will give you an estimate of how long it will take. 

4. The opportunities are endless! You can either serve it as a roast chicken for dinner along with some mashed potatoes and roast veggies, or you can shred it to use in any chicken dish you want!

I cooked up a 5.5lb chicken for one of our team lunches and shredded it all to use in a version of chicken pot pie (homemade biscuits topped with a chicken pot pie filling - I know, not really a pot pie but it tastes the same!). It fed 14 people hungry from a day of hard work on the farm. So it can stretch a long ways! And I saved the bones and skin so I can make a broth out of that. Nothing goes to waste!

If I don’t have people to feed and it’s just me, then I find this saves time and money because I can cook a big chicken all at once, shred it, and then portion it out and freeze what I won’t use right away. That way during the week I can just grab out a bag of already cooked and shredded chicken to make a quick meal out of.

And there you have it! One easy way of cooking a whole chicken and prepping for more than one meal at a time.

Next week, we’ll show you how to make a crockpot version of a whole chicken. Stay tuned!

Cheers to you and your health…and your wallet!

~Bethany