Greer’s Food Lion has 10 pound bags of chicken leg quarters for $5 each. That’s $0.50 per pound. AMAZING… but gross. So, I came home and put four quarters in a freezer bag for a meal of roasted chicken and placed the rest in a large pot of water with salt and pepper. (I could have added some wilted celery and carrots but ran out of room.)
Now, what am I going to do with all this boiled chicken?
I found this great little article HERE.
These little bargain beauties routinely come in 10-pound bags for a fabulous price. Here are ten things you can do with them to help stretch your family’s grocery budget.
Soft Tacos – Chop up left over, de-boned chicken and heat up in a frying pan with 8 ounces or so of tomato sauce and some taco seasoning. Serve with all of the usual taco items such as chopped lettuce, shredded cheese, black olives, etc.
Chicken Pot Pie – This down home, frugal family favorite is very inexpensive and uses thrifty vegetable choices as well such as carrots, onions and celery. Very affordable!
Soup – There are more recipe options for this than I could possibly list in one posting. Besides, if you are trying to carve out every extra penny, it’s probably more thrifty to use whatever you have on hand, right?
Chicken, Cheese and Pesto Calzones – OK, the pesto isn’t exactly a penny pinching item if you don’t make and can your own. But this recipe idea is a way to put a little pizazz into your family’s weekly menu without completely breaking the bank.
Burritos – Mix in that left over chopped chicken with some refried beans and use to fill a tortilla. Accent with your favorite Mexican style toppings.
Pizza – What are some of the yummy gourmet pizza ideas you’ve seen using chicken? Try them out at home! BBQ sauce instead of the traditional Italian red? Alfredo? Pesto? Get creative!
Go Greek – Mix with some yogurt and your favorite Greek style seasoning mix and serve in a pita bread.
Salad Power – Use with black beans and corn to give a Mexican feel to your green salad, try your hand at a homemade chicken Ceasar, or go traditional with a basic chef’s salad.
Fried Rice – This is a dirt cheap way to have an ethnic meal for dinner for around 15 cents per serving.
Your Basic Lunch Sandwich – Pair up your sliced chicken with some crisp greens and pre-cooked bacon for a yummy club sandwich. Here are some additional sandwich ideas for you die-hard bread fans out there. You’ll be brown bagging it in style.
A tip for using the large bags of chicken legs? Pre-cook them. You can either bake up the whole batch at once and de-bone after they’ve cooled, or bake up a few for a more traditional meat and potato dinner and just put in 2-3 extra legs for use throughout the week. If you really want to squeeze a penny until it cries, boil instead of bake the chicken when you pre-cook. You’ll have chicken stock ready to go!
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I love those bags of chicken. But my hubby gets really tired of roasted chicken quarters. I hadn’t thought of batch cooking the entire thing and having precooked chopped/shredded chicken on hand in the freezer. Brilliant. I can hardly wait for them to go on sale again
Oh and imagine all the homemade stock I could freeze from that…
Thank you for the compliment. (I’m hardly brilliant… just lazy. LOL)