Chicken Yoga – How to Stretch One Chicken Into Several Meals – Part 1

It’s time for some cooking on the blog! Today I’d like to show you how I use one frozen chicken to create several delicious meals. Every summer we stock up our freezer with delicious pastured chickens from our favorite local CSA farm Roots and Shoots. These are birds that live a regular chicken life. They are raised with lots of space to run and lots of bugs and grass to eat. The meat from these happy chickens is juicy, tender, amazing and also super easy to prepare. Our favorite way is to first roast the chicken (from frozen) and afterwards the meat and bones can be used in several more ways.

So here is the recipe # 1- HOW TO ROAST A CHICKEN FROM FROZEN

Roasting sounded scary to me but it turned out to be quite simple. It really is one of the easiest dinner meals ever. Here is what you’ll need:

  • dutch oven or roasting pan
  • meat thermometer
  • one frozen roasting chicken (5- 6 lbs)
  • olive oil
  • garlic salt
  • selection of spices and herbs: marjoram, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, paprika, turmeric etc.

The recipe is very short.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Rinse the frozen chicken (to get rid of freezer ice built up) pat it dry with paper towels and place it in a dutch oven. Pour some olive oil on your hand and cover the chicken skin with it. Season generously with garlic salt and spices of your choice. On the day when I took these photographs I just rubbed it with garlic salt and marjoram.

how-to-roast-a-chicken-from-frozenhow-to-roast-a-chicken-from-frozen

2. Place the chicken in the preheated oven and roast uncovered for 2 hours. After that time take it out from the oven and flip the chicken upside down. Place a meat thermometer into the thickest part of meat and keep roasting until the meat reaches 165 degrees F and the legs fall off easily. After the thermometer beeps I always check the temperature in a few more spots to make sure it’s at least 165 degrees everywhere. It usually takes another hour or so to reach that temperature. And that’s it! Your chicken is ready to serve. Here you can see how my son couldn’t resist picking some crispy skin before I was able to take a photo:

roasted-chicken-recipe

After the meal is served we always end up with not only lots of leftover meat but also bones, carcass and skin. I never throw these away! They are perfect to make a healthy chicken bone broth or stock that can later serve as a base for any soup or stew. Or you could also just drink it straight from a cup as well. Bone broth has been recently considered one of the super foods. It turns out it can help with virtually any ailment, so it’s also a wonderful healing food. When I was growing up in Poland, clear homemade chicken broth with noodles was one of the most popular soups. It was a staple on almost every table for Sunday dinner but as a kid I didn’t really like it. It was OK, but definitely not my favorite soup. Now I’m happy I had it so often because it gave me a good healthy start in life and making it from scratch now is like a second nature for me. It does help that the recipe is very easy. I always make a huge pot and then freeze the broth in large yogurt containers for future use.

Recipe #2 – HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN BROTH

Ingredients:

  • carcass, bones and skin from one roasted chicken (or turkey)
  • 2-3 carrots
  • 1-2 parsnips
  • two celery sticks
  • dark parts of leeks or whole onion
  • optional: piece of celeriac, rutabaga or turnip
  • optional: in season I add a few sprigs of oregano, parsley, thyme or sage from my garden
  • salt and pepper
  • 3-5 bay leaves
  • 1tsp of dried allspice berries
  • 1 tbs of apple cider vinegar
  • enough water to cover everything in a pot

homemade-chicken-broth

1. Place all chicken parts, clean whole veggies and all the spices and seasonings in a large soup pot. Completely cover with water.

how-to-make-chicken-broth

2. Bring to a boil and skim the scum if there is any. Cover with a lid and simmer on very low heat for several hours. 4-6 hrs is a good start. I usually prepare everything in the evening and simmer it overnight for about 12 hours. It’s OK to keep it as long as 24 hours!

homemade chicken stock recipechicken-broth-recipe

3. Let the broth cool. Strain the liquid into glass jars or other containers. I use large yogurt containers.

homemade chicken broth recipehow-to-make-chicken-broth_07

You can drink the chicken stock plain as is or store it for later. It will keep for a few days in the fridge or for several months in a freezer. I always have some frozen broth in our freezer and use it for soups. A while ago I shared this beet borscht recipe. If you like beets and healthy soups you can use your stock for that.

And don’t throw the veggies! Gently take them out and save them for other use. They’ll work great for this traditional Polish vegetable salad.

Peel the meat off the bones and use it for yourself or share with your dog 🙂 Our Morty loves it! This is what you’ll have left to use after the broth is done:

how-to-make-chicken-broth_08

I hope I convinced you how easy it is to roast a frozen chicken and make a homemade chicken broth. Please stop by the blog later this month to see what else you can make with the cooked veggies from the stock, how to use chicken leftovers and more ideas on how to use chicken stock. Till then – happy cooking!

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  1. […] The main ingredients in this dish are typical for the Polish cuisine root vegetables. I often make soup stocks and I re-use veggies from the stock to make my salad, but you can also boil them just for this […]

  2. […] broth or stock and water (half and half) […]

  3. […] week (in part one of this post) I shared with you how easy it is to roast a frozen chicken and make chicken broth. Today I’d […]



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