Do you love chicken? Do you love efficiency

1 bird, 17 meals, thousands of memories

The stretchability of a whole chicken is a frequently discussed topic among food and frugality bloggers. It’s commonly accepted that a single fowl will feed a family of 11 for weeks, years - even millennia. Even after 20 months of keeping CHG, I’m constantly gobsmacked by how moms and dads can create dinner after dinner from the same bird.

Here’s the thing: sometimes, those dinners aren’t the healthiest meals in the world. There tend to be a lot of quesadillas and casseroles whenever these type of posts pop up, not to mention chicken salads drenched with full-fat mayo. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this whatsoever (except the mayo - blech), but I wanted to see if I could put a healthier spin on it.

In a sentence: I wanted to find out if it was possible to create a gaggle of inexpensive, lower-fat meals with the leftovers from one big ol’ chicken.

Here were my rules:

• The budget – for EVERYTHING - was $25.
• I had to use as much food already in my pantry as possible. (Which accounted for a lot, and saved me mad dough in the long run.)
• Each meal had to feed at least two people (The Boyfriend and me).
• Bonus points for leftovers.
• The chicken had to be used up within a few days, so it wouldn’t go bad.
• The meals had to have reasonable variety, preferably from a range of cuisines. It couldn’t be Chicken with Spaghetti on Day 1, then Chicken with Penne on Day 2.
• The meals had to have very little added fat, since the leftover chicken would provide most of it.

CHECK OUT THE REST AND RECIPES HERE