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Store bought roasted chickens are becoming a huge "life-hack". Once cooled to where you can handle it, a roasted chicken can be entirely deskinned and deboned in about 15 minutes. And you can then turn them into a number of meals. Here in North America, at Costco (a co-op warehouse buying club for those not familiar with it) a $5 roasted chicken yields 2.5 - 3 pounds of meat (1.1 to 1.35 kilos). It's such a bargain, it's hard to pass up.

So... my question... There have been many blog posting online about how to turn a roasted chicken into 3-4 meals for a family of 3-4. What do you do with it if you are just one or two?

I'm single. I've spiked omelettes and salads. I've added cold chicken to fully cooked pasta dishes, letting them warm the chicken. I've made sandwiches. I've added it to fully cooked soup. I'm running out of ideas. I'm beginning to think I should just chop it all up, portion it out and freeze.

Any other ideas?

My favorite thing to do with a roast chicken is chicken risotto. Take all the meat off the carcass, use the carcass to make chicken stock, adding some veg to the pot. Use the stock to make the riostto, adding chicken meat right at the end. My personal favorite is a Nigel Slater recipe but there are some lovely online recipes using cooked chicken meat in the EYB Library. You can then freeze the extra risotto in individual portions.

So glad you brought this topic.  I love Costco roast chicken a lot and use it for various recipes. I pull out chicken breast section neatly as possible and slice into about 1 to 1 1/2 inches, thigh meat intact as possible for later cutting or shredding and rest just pull out into pieces and freeze all. Here are some uses.

Chicken & Miso Noodle Salad from Mr & Mrs Wilkinson's How It Is at Home by Matt Wilkinson (easy dish for parties/gatherings and very well reveived by people), chilled Japanese ramen salads, chilled Asian noodle salads, enchiladas, omurice with chicken, fried rice, fried Asian style noodles, chicken laksa, Mexican style spicy tortilla soup, tacos, Puerto Rican aspao,  taquitos, chalupas, King ranch breakfast strata, chicken pot pie, chimichangas, burritos, quesadillas, banh mi, chicken tikka wraps, Chicken and Swiss Stuffing Bake using stuffing mix, Paglia E Fieno Al Professore (check copymethat or food dot com), etc

And Jane, that risotto recipe looks good.  Will have to make it.

I am also single. When I roast a chicken, I divide the cooked meat in three parts: one part to eat immediately & the next day, and freeze two equal portions in freezer bags. I use the leftover chicken for soup, salad, pasta sauce, casseroles, stir-fry, curry, tacos, etc. Almost all chicken recipes can be adapted for leftover roast chicken. (I prefer to cook dishes that allow for 2-3 days leftovers, but you could divide the original roast chicken into more freezer bags.)

Thanks for all the great ideas!

Rinshin, I'd never thought of Banh Mi, which should have been obvious. Do you have a "goto" recipe for the Banh Mi veggie pickling? From my experience, the pickled veggies make the difference between great and "it's a sandwich" Banh Mi (and good butter of course). There must be a secret to making the great pickling solution.

I think Daikon and Carrot Pickle from Banh Mi Handbook by Andrea Nguyen.  There is an online link here. That style of pickle is common in Asia.  In Japan a very similar pickle is called namasu with additional sprinkle of sesame seeds.  Her version is bit more vinegar in proportion to sugar than namasu but I think it works in sandwiches like this.  I normally use bolillo bread for sandwiches like this but not sure how common this bread is outside of California.  

Rinshin, I too live in Silicon Valley as you do. Friends and I used to go to a hole-in-the-wall Banh Mi shop near Apple, in the corner of a strip mall at Steven's Creek and De Anza. The Banh Mi was so good and it was the pickled vegetables! We used to joke that they must contain crack cocaine because they were so addictive. The shop changed hands and the veggie secret went with it. They were never as good again. 

Since I asked you, I did a bunch of research and came across a couple of unique brine recipes. I hybridized them into one and I think I've come close to that magic formula. This is for 1 quart of pickled vegetables. Bring to a boil and whisk until blended. Pour over the veggies and add water as necessary to completely cover veggies.

1 cup (unseasoned) Rice Wine Vinegar

1/2 cup Lime Juice

3 tbs Honey

3 tbs Fish Sauce

1 tsp Sesame Oil

Thank you for the recipe Fyretigger.  My work environment was Menlo Park/Palo Alto based and used to frequent many places during lunch or after work.  It's often the smallish family run places that serve some memorable meals. 

https://edition.cnn.com/...ollar-chicken/index.html

I like eating the chicken in whole pieces. I also make tacos with it. My parents like making chicken soup with it. 

Fyretigger, I have some Japanese turnips from my CCSA that are just waiting for your pickle recipe.

I've used up chicken in fried rice, and added cooked chicken to a quick saute of veggies.  Both of those involve also using whatever vegetables I have, though the saute is usually mediterranean or middle eastern influenced, involving tomatoes and eggplant.

Following MarciK's taco idea, my hubby heated up chicken with soy sauce and lime juice, shredded some raw cabbage and carrot and we wrapped in in tortillas.  Quick and very tasty!

One thing I can say for the pandemic,  fusion food is getting really common in my kitchen. 

Zephy

Isn't that the truth! I made the Pollo en Chicha from the October 2020 issue of Bon Appétit yesterday (the recipe is online, it's indexed as Pollo en Chica, but I suspect that is Bon Appétit's mistake), and as I was making the Relajo spice blend, I was thinking "Wow that smells like a great pizza!" So I think an El Salvadoran take on pizza is in my near future. I know how I'm going to spice the sauce, I just have to figure out what should go on it.

Regarding the article about Costco taking over production of its rotisserie chickens, it really says something about large-scale corporate farming, that Costco has to grow their own to be able to get birds that are "only 6 pounds". It's sad that the solution was even more large-scale corporate farming, but at least they sought out a place with the appropriate natural resources and a ready labor supply.

I had an experience with that size issue yesterday. I bought a package of chicken thighs to make the Pollo en Chicha. I open it and there are 7 perfectly average thighs; and then there's the one from 'Attila the Hen' -- it was 3 times the size of all the others. And it seems like the problem is the worst when buying breasts - they're so uneven in size they won't cook at anywhere near the same rate. Maybe the chicken industry needs to learn a lesson from the shellfish industry and start grading by size.

I find Costco Kirkland brand air chilled chicken thigh pieces smaller than normal.  Tastes better than what they used to sell.  

Re the size issue and chicken thighs - I continue to read recipes that ask for "X number of boneless skinless thighs (Y lbs)".....and the thighs I buy at my store are often NOWHERE near that #:mass ratio....I'm not sure why.  I realize that this is  a very tiny issue for me (and my apparently very tiny chicken thighs :) but I just wondered if anyone has the same experience.  

Agreed.  Whenever I see Japanese chefs working with boneless chicken thighs, those pieces are normally twice the size of what I find.  

I think that may be an indexing error so I have corrected it to Pollo en chicha. We give the magazine issue page number in our index so even if the magazine did get it wrong, the recipe will still be easy to find. Thanks for alerting us to that error.