Let’s face it: good food costs good money. In my area, a nice pasture-raised broiler fetches between $4 and $5 / lb. I count my stars that it’s this low considering that some national retailers of pastured poultry get away with charging twice that to their customers. It’s expensive, especially when you can run to your corporate-owned, national grocery store and buy a whole roasting bird for a flat $3.99.
While it may be easy to balk at paying upwards of $30 for a single broiler, it’s a cost that’s well-justified. That single, good-quality bird can provide up to five meals for an average family of mindful eaters. You see, a pasture-raised bird – expensive as it might seem – provides more nutrients than a conventional bird. Pasture-raised broilers, allowed to access a natural diet, are richer in beta carotene, retinol and omega-3 fatty acids than their factory-farmed, $3.99 counterparts. A good quality, pastured bird goes a long, long way.
Meal #1: Roast Chicken with Vegetables
Start it simple; prepare a good roast chicken. It’s a classic one-dish meal – gently season your chicken and add it to a casserole dish or clay cooker, add chopped root vegetables to the dish as well and bake at 325 º F for 3 hours before turning the oven up to 400 º F for the last ½ hour. If you’re planning to make this bird last all week long, take care to carve it well and serve small, but satisfactory portions. Two good slices of breast meat and two chicken legs should be enough to feed a family of four, provided you include plenty of vegetables.
Need a little more inspiration? Check out these roast chicken recipes: perfect roast chicken, roast chicken with prosciutto and herbs or Moroccan roast chicken.
Meal #2: Chicken Sandwiches
The next day, slice the remaining breast and tender meat thin and serve them on a good, whole-grain bread with plenty of mayonnaise for lunch. Try nice additions like wasabi mayonnaise, ripe avocado, vegetable sprouts, heirloom tomato and a good raw cheese.
Meal #3: Chicken Salad
For your third meal, try preparing a nice chicken salad. Now that the breast meat, tenders and drumsticks are gone you have the thigh and back meat remaining. Thigh meat is particularly well-suited to chicken salad as it’s moister and more flavorful than breast meat and easier to use than the meat from the drumsticks. Chop the chicken thigh meat well, mix it with mayonnaise, halved grapes, minced parsley, chopped celery and walnuts for a great chicken salad that’s best served over greens.
Meal #4: White Chili
Lastly, pick any remaining meat off the chicken. The back of the chicken is much-neglected in this regard. Fry the meat with onion, garlic and stew it with white beans, green chilies, cumin and oregano for a delicious and simple white chili.
Meal #5: Chicken Soup
Lastly, when the bones have been picked clean of any remaining meat, toss the carcass into a stew pot or slowcooker to prepare a nourishing, mineral-rich roast chicken stock. From here you can prepare many nourishing soups, and you’re also likely to have stock leftover for more uses. Try chicken and wild rice soup, kale and white bean soup or lentil stew.
All in all, at least five nourishing meals from a single broiler makes the price tag of a good, pastured chicken worth it. Remember, budget cuts in your kitchen should come not from cheap food, but from properly managing your kitchen and reducing waste where you can – a whole bird can be stretched, used and stretched again to make that initial investment last.
Shared on Pennywise Platter.
Great post! I could never stretch one chicken for 5 meals in my house; with 2 teenagers, a husband that does physical labor and a nursing mom, we’re lucky if we have any leftover meat when I make a roast chicken, even with a LOT of vegetable sides. Using the back meat for chili is a really good idea, though. We usually just have the roast chicken and stock, and maybe one person’s lunch if we are lucky.
I love how you spread this one bird into five meals. I usually start with stock and then use that meat for meals throughout the week. However, I can’t roast a small chicken or my hubby will polish it all off in one setting, lol!
This subject has really been tugging at my heart lately. the high prices of good quality, pasture raised meat. I definitely know that it has to be higher because of the way they are raising them, I have backyard chickens, have my own organic gardens and farmers as friends so I know the labor that goes into it, but I’m starting to wonder how many producers out there are deliberately raising their prices beyond reasonable measures because it’s “pasture raised”. I am so blessed to be from Iowa but I was raised in California and although I know prices of living are higher in larger area’s, some of the prices I’ve seen are outrageous. This is just me being me, lol, but I would love to be able to really find out what cost of feed is, maintaining pastures, etc.. and what kind of profit some producers are making by say charging $20 a gallon for raw milk. Being a minority and involved in the Latino community, it’s difficult to see some people without the option of providing nourishing food for their families and children. Sorry Jenny, a subject I’ve been really interested in lately, didn’t mean to hog our space
As always, great post!
Oops.. I meant hog your space
We live in North Central Wi. And raise Grass-fed Angus beef. We also raise pastured poultry, we sell them for $2.00 lb. professionly processed & shrink wrapped. We currently have cornish game hens(aprox. 2 lbs each). It sad to see the store prices, how can this encourage people to eat healthier…
Ohhh how I love this post! I, too, love stretching whole chickens! I grew up on chicken breasts because of the low-fat craze (blech) and when I started buying nourishing foods as an adult, specific to this post, pastured chicken, I couldn’t believe the huuuuuge difference in price for skinless/boneless chicken breasts from a pastured chicken (around here in PA, about 8 or 9 dollars per pound). I initially started buying whole chickens simply to save money, but as I immersed myself in The Ways of WAPF (lol), I found that I preferred them because they are so versatile. I’ve always liked things like whole milk and dark meat, even though they were preached to me as “no-no’s” growing up. Eating those two things rekindled something inside of me. Right now it’s only me and my hubby, so typically I buy 4 or 5 pound birds, which run me usually anywhere from 10 to 13 bucks per bird depending on the weight, and I can get about 3 ish meals (sometimes 4) out of one. Two nights ago, I made a lovely roast chicken with herbes de Provence, rice, gravy made from the pan drippings, and an arugula salad with balsamic vinegar, EVOO, and parm cheese (I only used a leg/thigh for each of us). YUM! Last night, I tore the breast and back meat apart and made sandwiches on homemade bread, and I dressed them with a pesto I made with salad leftovers: a small baggie of leftover arugula, walnuts, and a small hunk of leftover parm, and EVOO. Delicious! I had one more sandwich for myself today for lunch, as I work at home, and I love leftovers more than my hubby does lol. I stuck the bones in the freezer for this weekend to make stock, and I saved the rind from my parm cheese as well – it will go in the stock to flavor it, as I plan on making a big pot of Zuppa Toscana (sp?).
It’s so satisfying to me to be able to get so much versatility and varied meals from one lovely animal
Hi Jenny -
I did a similar comparison of my chicken and several other meals for cost with all organic or natural ingredients. We are a family of three, and the cost per person per meal was about $3.79 with our final total for 7 meals (three people eating each meal) was $79.79, which I think is a fantastic deal. Here’s the post:
http://www.agriculturesociety.com/?p=2523
The chicken cost around $21, and is pasture-raised, but still not cheap. I have a friend who has six people in her family and always reminds me that they could not eat for that cheap – of course, you’d have to double that cost for three more people. They don’t buy much organic, typically buy the most economical food to save money, don’t shop through farmers or go to the market. She truly believes her family can’t afford to eat the way we do. I’ve tried to think of ways to convince her that they could eat healthier, but she just doesn’t think so.
But it’s great to have comparisons like this to give people hope that they can eat healthy if they are willing to be creative and try things they haven’t before. I know we eat really well, but we are always extremely tight on money and do without pretty much everything except paying our bills. We are just starting a new solar and green IT business as of last year, so we have to watch every penny we spend. Thanks Jenny!
You should add brining to your bag of tricks.
Improves even my perfect chicken.
Brandon -
I’m so with you – there’s nothing like a well-brined, pasture-raised chicken. It really helps with the flavor and tenderness of the bird.
- Jenny