Roasting a Whole Chicken + 5 Meal Ideas from 1 Chicken

Roasting a whole chicken is super easy and cost effective! Trust me, coming from a farmer herself! We only sold whole chickens for the first 3 years of our farming career because it was most cost effective and used the whole animal. Once you’ve done it a few times, roasting a whole chicken is one of the best ways to eat a chicken!

Why you Want to Roast a Whole Chicken

1. You’ll get leftovers – trust me you can get about 5 meals from one chicken (as seen below)
2. You’ll get broth – yup that carcass makes some pretty delicious broth
3. It’s cheaper – buying bulk whole chickens from your local farmer means cost savings for you
4. Cost effective – if you raise your own chickens, (or buy from a local farmer) it means skipping the cost of processing the bird into different cuts

5 Meal Ideas from 1 chicken

To start I like to roast the whole chicken in the (like the recipe below), for the first dinner I will either have the legs or the breast. The legs I love to do in bbq sauce and re heat in the over. For the breasts, I’ll either stuff them, sherd them, or cut them up for various dishes such as, fajitas, chicken curry, tacos, etc.  You can divide the breast and legs into 3 servings of protein.

Then will the leftover carcass, I will pick it clean and use those bits for either my chicken noodle soup, chicken salad sandwich, or even chicken omelette. Once the carcass is bare, I stick it in my instant pot and make bone broth for the week. I use that for my soups, and rice dishes. If I am know I won’t be using a lot of broth this week, I will pressure can it and add it to the pantry.

Roasting a Whole Chicken

Follow the recipe below for the super simple tutorial and you’ll a pro in no time! I’d love to hear if you’ve roasted a whole chicken before and what you do with it to feed your family!