Free Range Chicken

One of my goals with getting my family to eat healthy real food is to do so without really changing our grocery bill. Now that I see food as an investment in our health and our children's health I'm okay with our grocery bill being slightly higher but honestly it is not feasible for us to double our food budget. 

An area that has been especially tricky for me is meat. Grass-fed beef and free-range chicken is really expensive; usually double in price if not more than what we were paying for regular meat before. This was especially true for chicken breasts. I could find chicken breast for $2-$3 a lb. and free-range chicken breast are closer to $8 a lb. That is a huge price increase for us! 

I've had to branch out and try to find other ways to make this work. I was super excited when I found whole free-range chickens for $3 a lb. I could buy a 4 lb. chicken for $12, get 2 meals out of it plus extras. 

For example, I roasted the entire chicken one night for dinner. The four of us ate a little less than half of it. I cut up the rest of it and am using it in a second meal this week. I'm making chicken noodle soup but this could really be used for any recipe that calls for shredded chicken like chicken enchiladas, chicken salad, fajitas... the list goes on. 

Now, I said we also got extras out of our whole chicken and you may be wonder, what the heck are "extras"? Well calm down I'm about to tell you :) After I roasted the chicken I used the pan drippings to make a large batch of gravy. The gravy can be frozen and used to jazz up mashed potatoes during the week, in shepherd's pie, casseroles, meatballs, etc. 

I've gotten 2 meals and gravy out of 1 bird and now I'm left with the scraps as I like to call it; the carcass, bits of meat, the skin and what not. This can be boiled in water with veggies like carrots, onions, and celery to make your own chicken stock! This can also be frozen and pulled out to make soup or literally anything that calls for broth or stock. 

I don't know if I'm going to roast a chicken and make all of this every week but I like the option to be able to buy free-range chicken for my family and get enough out of it that my overall grocery costs don't really go up. I just have to get a little creative.