All broth makers share the same experience: they make a fantastic broth, packed with nutrients, and then are left with the meat that has fallen off the bones – tasteless, unappetizing, and uninspiring. Is there something to do besides choke it down or feed it to your cat? (We don’t feed our cat commercial pet food, so it’s not a waste, but still…) 🙂
Being the frugalest of the frugal, I’m not about to waste any food that comes into the house if I can help it! But I’m also not about to torture my family and leave them with bad memories of unpleasant food I forced them to eat so it didn’t go to waste. Bland soup chicken is easily transformed and made into a really tasty dish. Here’s what I do:
Revamped Soup Chicken
First I shred the chicken. Then, using chicken or lamb fat that I’ve rendered, I heat the fat and saute the chicken in the fat – this gives it a rich and delicious flavor. (If you don’t have rendered animal fat, you can use expeller pressed coconut oil, but it’s not going to be nearly as good.) Then I generously season it with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and anything else that appeals to me that day. After it’s been sauteed and seasoned, I add it to stir fries, pot pies, tacos/burritos, chimichangas – lots of possibilities!
Because I tend to think of this as a humble thrifty supper, when we recently had a couple for dinner mid week, I wanted to serve something nicer. I had a different main dish planned, but something happened and I ended up having to serve this. I was a little embarrassed when the husband asked me how I cooked it (I thought he was thinking it looked wimpy or not up to their standards – they live on a much higher income than we do), so I gave him a brief answer. Turned out he really wanted to know because he was trying to figure out why it tasted so good and wanted his wife to make it the same way; he’s a good friend of my husband and kept raving about how good it the next couple of times they spoke!
Simple, frugal, and good for you, too – can’t beat that combination!
Do you have tips on how to use your leftover soup chicken? Share them below in the comments section!
(This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursdays.)
Avivah
How do you render animal fat?
I’ll post about this sometime in the next week; someone else also asked me the same question. 🙂
I find soup chicken meat also makes the most delicious chicken salad. Chop into small pieces and add a bit of mayo when it’s still hot, let cool, then add good mustard, garlic powder, salt and pepper, paprika, and chopped celery. It’s a great quick meal and/or side on Sh!bos lunch.
Good suggestion, Nicole! I do that in the summer, but warm weather foods aren’t on my mental radar right now since it’s cold out. 🙂
I’d like to know if and how you render beef tallow! I read somewhere that there’s a way to do it with ground beef (as well as not ground) and it’s something that I’d love to try and start doing.
Yes, I’ve done beef tallow also and will share about that, too! As of now I scheduled a post on fat rendering for the coming Thursday.
Thanks, Avivah. 🙂
I make something very similar to this! I think I called it frizzled chicken or something like that. LOL. I think it’s delicious too.
Frizzled chicken sounds so catchy! Kimi, it sounds like we have similar experiments – someone commented here on my peanut butter cups and said it’s similar to a recipe of yours. 🙂
Hi,
i make chicken pot pie out of my soup chicken. Take 1C each carrot, celery, onion diced. Sautee til soft and put aside. Now make a roux out of 1/4 c flour (any) and 3T oil. Add in 1 c broth from your soup (usually this is enough at the bottom of the pot plus squeezed out of any remaining vegetables) and stir til roux is thick. Add your chicken (diced) and your vegetables. Season w/ salt and pepper. Place into piecrust, top w/ piecrust, brush with egg and bake 1 hour 350. Delicious. And no one knows it’s soup chicken.
Hi, Miriam, welcome and thank you for sharing your pot pie recipe! I also like to make potpie with my soup chicken. 🙂
Hi, Aviva,
I really enjoy your blog-Yasher Koach!
Here is what I like to do. I take cooked, shredded chicken from my soup and I mix it with bread cubes(stale bread is perfect), seasoning and some egg. Using cubed,stale bread is key to the proper texture. Then I form it into patties and fry in olive oil.My kids love it!