Sunday, March 17, 2013

Ten Uses for Shredded Chicken

A whole chicken is probably the cheapest way to get quality animal protein, but it can be a pain to use.  When I first joined C'est Naturelle Farms farm share and started getting whole chickens, I was ambitious enough to cut apart the chicken, use the breasts for chicken nuggets and grind the rest up to make sausages like these Chicken Apple Breakfast Sausages.  Then things got busier and I just started cooking a bird in the crock-pot about once a week.  Then I make chicken stock with the bones and 1 T vinegar and 1 t salt.  Usually I have a lot of shredded chicken leftover, so I decided to gather some ideas to use it more creatively.


Stir fry - This is my go-to option for a quick meal.  The other day when I was sick, I didn't want to think about dinner at all.  I swung by the grocery store to pick up a bag of pre-cut "stir-fry" vegetables and threw them in the wok with some oil and shredded chicken from the freezer.  Once they were almost cooked I added some coconut aminos, orange juice and a little flavored balsamic vinegar (Navidi's Honey Ginger Balsamic) and some seasoning salt.  Then I added a few mandarin oranges and heated through.  I was able to make a dinner that my son enjoyed and had time to do a few crossword puzzles with him between stirs.

Chicken Salad - I have literally just thrown some chicken in a dish, added some lemon juice and seasoning salt and eaten it on a bed of spinach.  If you want something more substantial, I'll be trying this Avocado Chicken Salad recipe that came highly recommended.

Chicken with Peanut Sauce - I made this tasty Zucchini Noodles with Chicken and Tangy Peanut Sauce recipe a while back and I'm not sure why I haven't made it since.  I wasn't expecting it to freeze well but it did.  It's also very pretty to look at.

Tacos/ Lettuce Wrap - I usually use ground beef in tacos, but chicken is a great option as well.  It can be as simple as throwing some salsa in with your chicken and putting it in a large lettuce leaf with olives, avocados and whatever else you like on your tacos.  I enjoy it on a bed of greens with some lime juice, but I'm eager to try making my own tortillas, such as these Primal Tex Mex Tortillas.

Pizza - One of my son's more frequent meal requests is pizza, despite the fact that we haven't found quite the right crust recipe yet.  Cauliflower only was a bit crumbly and coconut flower was way too dry. I recall almond flower was decent, but I've had to cut down on almonds recently.  I even tried a crust made mostly of cheese when I figured out that I do OK with dairy.  It was tasty, but didn't sit quite right - I guess I might have been pushing the dairy envelope on that one.  Today I tried one using cauliflower, carrot, kale and coconut flower.  I thought perhaps the combination of cauliflower and coconut flower might balance each other out.  It turned out way too floppy, so next time I'll try something with more dry flour than veggies.  I think that this was the almond flour recipe I used that worked pretty well: Gluten Free Thin Crust Pizza.  You can make it with pesto, marinara or make your own homemade BBQ sauce (which I plan on trying soon).

Fried "Rice" - I don't know how I've managed to get this far without trying cauliflower "rice." I've heard good things from friends about it, and I'm eager to try it soon.  This recipe looks like a good simple choice: Chicken Fried "Rice".

Chili - I modified this Pumpkin Chicken Chili with Garam Masala in place of some of the chili powder to make it less spicy.  It was a little heavy on the coriander, but it was pretty darn tasty overall and a good texture (I'd been leery of legume free chili recipes up to this point).  I will definitely plan on posting my final recipe once I work out the kinks!

Chicken Soup - You can combine your homemade chicken stock and leftover chicken into a tasty soup with just a few vegetables and seasonings.  I'd like to try something more adventurous like this Tom Kha Gai soup one of these days.

Cobb Salad - Make a salad with some chicken, egg, bacon, avocado and anything else that suits your fancy.  Use a vinaigrette dressing, or blue cheese if you eat dairy.

Squash Casserole - When we got a bunch of squash in the fall and I asked my son what he wanted to do with it, he said he wanted to make a squash casserole.  I hadn't really been making casseroles much since going mostly primal.  I used some chicken I had leftover and some homemade chicken broth and it turned out pretty well.  The boy wasn't too sure about it because he's not that big a fan of chicken, but it went over well at the potluck I brought it to.

4 cups winter squash
3 cups chicken
2 cups chicken broth
3 cups carrots
2 t salt
2 t cinnamon
1/2 t cloves
1/2 t nutmeg
Almond or other nut or seed meal

Cook at 350 until squash is soft - about 30 min.  You can add some almond meal or something similar at the end if you'd like to give it a bread crumb texture.




1 comment:

  1. Aww. I put my shredded chicken in the food processor to try out the sneaky chef nugget recipe. I should have used the dough blade. I ended up frying pate.
    I'll use shrimp in the stir fry recipe and see if that saves dinner!

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