Every week, I buy a whole chicken, and we get 4 meals for two of us from it, plus stock to cook with.

To roast the chicken: remove chicken from the packaging and drain. I know it’s tempting, but try not to rinse the chicken. Chicken backsplash is a great way to get salmonella all over your kitchen.

Season the chicken, however you like. I use a blend of salt (1tsp) and tablespoon each of garlic powder and onion powder, and several generous shakes of smoked paprika mixed into a bowl and sprinkled onto both sides of the chicken.

Roast the chicken at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until cooked through. Use the weight to guide your cooking time. Once the chicken is cooked, remove from oven and let sit until it’s cool enough to handle. Pull the meat off the chicken body and reserve for future meals, leaving the wing tips.

Make stock from the bones and skin. You can do this a couple of ways. 1)In a stock pot. Place bones and skin, along with veggie tops such as carrot, celery, onion – or 1 each chopped carrot, rib of celery, 1/2 onion, and enough water to cover the chicken and veggies. Simmer on low heat 1-2 hours. The longer the simmer, the deeper the flavor. 2)In the InstaPot. Follow the above steps, and pressure cook on high pressure for 25 minutes. Add salt and seasonings as desired before cooking. I like to add rosemary and dill. Fresh parsley adds a nice flavor.

Optional: before cooking your stock, roast the bones and any leftover skin along with your veggies to add depth of flavor. Once your stock is cooked and cooled to room temp, strain it into a cheesecloth-lined sieve or colander set over a bowl. Ladle it into containers and refrigerate or freeze. Use to add flavor to savory dishes in place of water.

Fresh cilantro would be delicious added into the cooking pot. Andrew is one of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap, so we don’t usually buy cilantro. It’s sad 😦

This week, we used the meat for: chicken quesadillas, chicken pasta with peas and air fryer zucchini fries, air fryer crisped chicken and waffles, and the 4th meal will be chicken with mashed potatoes and broccoli.

I used some of the stock tonight to make taco meat with ground turkey and seasonings, and some to make black beans on Sunday to go with our quesadillas the other day and our taco potatoes (air fryer baked potatoes stuffed w taco meat and cheese). I’ll use some to make mashed potatoes and then I’ll have some left for next week’s meals as well.

That’s how we stretch a chicken around here, how about you? Let me know in the comments.