How much chicken to batch cook?

[EmilyK]

So! I'm working on my menu plan for at least the first couple of weeks.  Looking at easy ways to batch cook proteins and then turn them into lunches in particular for my husband and myself (as well as including our kiddos in dinners)....I'm thinking maybe 3 whole chickens for a week's worth of meals for the two of us?  Does that sound incredibly nuts?  Too much?  Not enough?

 

I've been trying to cook compliant dinners lately to help my husband especially get a more concrete idea of what portions and proportions he should be eating.  Last night I roasted a chicken with carrots and potatoes and it fed us for dinner last night and lunch today.  So if I'm going to just roast up a chicken for using in other applications (salads, whatever), does 3 for a week sound reasonable for us?

 

I'm planning to use more chicken-part-type meals for dinners--NNP's cracklin' chicken, etc.  But as far as my weekly pre-cooking sessions, does roasting up 3 chickens for two adults for a week sound about right?

 

Thank you!

[Munkers]

Three chickens sounds like a good starting point. I'd say try it the first week and see what happens. If you find that you're running out of leftovers later in the week then maybe do a fourth chicken on your second weekly cook-up. Or, on the flipside, if you find that you can't eat that much chicken because you're also eating dinner leftovers or just getting sick of chicken then knock it back to two. Either way you've got a good headstart for the week.

[EmilyK]

Thanks.  That just sounded like a lot to me for just one week but I suppose it goes along with revamping how we eat. 

[MeadowLily]

I'm sure you already know this but deboning the chicken (or turkey) immediately after roasting keeps the chicken from spoiling so fast.  Throwing the carcass back in and out of fridge...spoil city.

[jent103]

If it ends up being too much, I've successfully frozen pulled chicken. I'd put it in snack-size bags so you can thaw a serving as needed. Easy to put in soups, lettuce wraps, whatever later!

[LadyM]

I hope you plan to eat other things besides chicken, too!

[EmilyK]

I do!  But roasted chicken and a slow-cooker pork butt are going to be my two "bulk" proteins for lunch and dinner since they're easy to cook a lot of and also flavor neutrally.    But chicken is a crowd pleaser, and i'm taking away many, MANY of my husband's favorite foods for the upcoming challenge so it's an easy staple to lean on. 

[SpinSpin]

Make sure to make bone broth from the carcasses! I typically do 2 a week (although the last time I did 2, I wish I had done one more!) but I take all the meat off the bones, throw the bones back in the oven in a large roasting pan along with carrots, onions, celery, garlic cloves and what ever other veg I am going to add to the stock, and let it roast for about an hour at 350. Then I dump the whole works into either my big 7 quart crock pot or my 12 qt stock pot and cover with filtered water and toss in about 10-15 peppercorns and a few glugs of apple cider vinegar (helps get the minerals out of the bones) and bring to a boil and then simmer over 3 days, or until the bones moosh when squeezed, or a leg bone can be snapped in half. Then I decant the stock, cool, and portion into quart bags, or I make soup right away out of it. My last batch of broth I did, I made curried cauliflower soup and broccoli soup from NNP. YUM! So good with this cold weather we have been having and I have an 18oz coffee mug that I drank it out of along with my lunch. 

[EmilyK]

So, just in case anyone was curious, I think i pre-cooked WAY too much food for my husband and I for this week.  Either that, or we aren't eating enough--but either way, there is a lot of protein left over that is already cooked.

 

I'm thinking I'll end up freezing them in individual portions and we can work on them for the rest of the month for lunches, etc...is there a best practice for how to do that, in anyone's experience?

 

Thanks!