The Costco rotisserie chicken, an easy life hack to keep on hand for quick dinners.

So my kids will tell you I’m a huge fan of the Costco rotisserie chicken. I know it seems to be in an area of two camps. You either love it or you hate it, but I’m here to show you why I love it and how I use it especially in times where I don’t have a lot of time to make dinner which is pretty much every day.

So when I go to Costco, I don’t just buy one chicken. I typically buy four. How are you gonna use all that chicken before it spoils is probably what you’re wondering and that is what I am here to show you. So once I buy my chickens at Costco, I bring them home and allow them to cool a little bit so that I am able to handle them.

This is what my set up looks like

I simply have one bowl for the meat of the chicken one bowl for the bones and everything I will use to make a broth and then of course the chicken in the middle that is getting processed.

Before I get started, I get out my gallon size Ziploc bags and label them simply stating chicken and the date and I fold back the Ziploc so that I am easily able to put the chicken in without touching the bag. That looks like this.

Now each chicken from Costco that I take the meat off I am able to make two dinners out of therefore I put the meat two separate gallon size Ziploc bags.  I take care of processing all four chickens at one time that way I can keep a stash of ready to eat frozen shredded chicken in my freezer to make quick dinners. Once I am done, it looks like this.

Now you left with a bunch of chicken carcasses that you should not just throw away. I take all four, yes four, put them in a big stock pot and fill to the brim with water. I allow that to come to a boil on the stove and then reduce to a simmer and allow to cook down All day. Once it is cool enough, I put it in the refrigerator to completely cool down. The next morning I take it out of the refrigerator and scrape off all that fat that has risen to the top and hardened. I scrape that off and put it in the trash but if you want more fatty chicken, you can go ahead and leave it.

Then once it is boiled. I cool it and switch it into a cast iron dutch oven, shown below after the soup has cooled and is ready to scrape the fat as I will describe next.

Then I simply take all of the bones out and leave the leftover chicken and add salt and pepper, one bag of already processed chicken, carrots, celery, onion, and additional spices. If you want to make it more creamy, you can make a rue (butter and onions until translucent then add milk or cream and some flour). I now have a huge pot of chicken soup that I separate into two meals One that I will serve with some boiled up noodles as a chicken noodle soup, the other I freeze for a rainy day and I can pull out and heat up for some homemade chicken noodle soup. Make sure you do not add the noodles until you actually ready to eat the soup otherwise the noodles get super mushy.

So what kind of things can you make a half of a rotisserie chicken? I feel like the possibilities are endless. It’s literally just cooked shredded chicken, but here’s a quick list.

• Enchiladas

• Tacos

• Broccoli chicken rice bake

• Chicken soup

• Chicken curry

• Chicken salad

• Chicken sandwiches

That’s just a quick list but again the possibilities are endless. The key is to have a cooked meat on hand so that you can make dinner in a pinch. Now I typically keep two of the bags of chicken in the refrigerator and I put the rest in the freezer that allows me to have already ready to go defrosted chicken. If you have already gone through that, you can pull out a frozen chicken bag and put it in the refrigerator to defrost if you are in a pinch, go ahead and defrost the microwave.

I know my kids get sick of chicken, but I tell them all the time just wait until you’re a mom and you need to have dinner ready every single night. The struggle is real. This is a simple life hack that has worked for me and I bet I can work for you , I might’ve been there and I do know that.

Xo,

Mama