Stretching that Chicken (as requested!)

So as many of us moms or wives know, meat/protein in general, is usually the most expensive thing on our grocery list.  On a previous post about stretching out your food, I talked about how to stretch out hamberger meat for a variety of meals.  I am now going to touch on how to stretch out a chicken!!

First off, what is the difference in buying frozen chicken or fresh..... actually, quite a bit of a difference.

• Frozen chicken breast prices on average come to about $8.65/kg (this was the average of 3 store advertisements for frozen chicken).
• Fresh chicken breast prices on average come to about $13/kg (this was the average of 3 stores again).

I buy my frozen chicken breast from Costco.  You get a 4kg box for $29.99..... that's $7.49/kg.  If you don't have a Costco card, I found Walmart advertising for this week 2.85kg for $20 (that's $7.02/kg) for a box of frozen SEASONED chicken breasts which are very good but they are seasoned.

Now the cost of FRESH chicken is lower if you decide to buy chicken this way:

• chicken thighs:  average $11.00/kg
• chicken wings:  average $6.50/kg
• whole chicken:  average $5/kg or LESS

How To Stretch That Chicken!

• Use the chicken as an ingredient and not as a main.  Try to stay away from meals that need chicken breast as a whole. 
• Cut up your chicken into small cubes or slices.  This way the chicken can be stretched out better in the meal.
• If you do have meals that are for a full chicken breast, use thighs instead.  We have a meal called "Russian Chicken" which is for chicken beasts as a whole.  We switched to chicken thighs and found not only did we not use as much chicken, the taste of the meal was better.
• Use creams or stuffing mixes to beef up your chicken meals.  Especially when making a cassorole, add in a box of stuffing.  Cream of chicken soup is a great taste addition to any meal and allows the meal (we are talking mostly cassorole) to taste like a lot of chicken is going on when its not.
• Add in rice.  This can easily be done when making fajitas.  If you only have a chicken breast, slice up more veggies and make some rice.  That way you can split the chicken breast slices and add in rice, making the meal look fuller and even taste fuller.  (I'm talking about 2 people for a meal when I say a single chicken breast, when you do this the first time cook 2 breasts just to make sure this will work for you).
• Add in shrimp!!  I made a meal last week and only had 2 chicken breasts for a very large cassorole.  I decided to put some shrimp in to make up for the missing meat and the meal turned out great.  I always have shrimp on hand in my freezer, purchasing it when it goes on sale!
• I am doing a post after this one on how to cook a FULL chicken, purchasing a full chicken and cooking and splitting it yourself can save you a lot of money!