Matt Preston shows you how to make three meals out of one chicken - How To

Jun 03, 2025

No need to count your chickens here – one bird is all you need.

I often get asked for the secret of keeping the costs of feeding a family down, and mostly, my response is three simple words: “Buy a chicken”. Not a live clucking one. No, I’m talking about a whole chook that comes from the supermarket or your butcher. Here’s how I make one decent-sized bird see us through three hearty meals for a family of four.

whole roast chicken — Save the whole roast chook for special occasions.

Roast it: how to roast a chicken crown

Remove the wings, legs and thighs from the bird and reserve. Dry the crown, rub with oil and salt, and slip a slashed lemon up its clacker. Roast the crown on a trivet, with some chicken stock and lemon juice under it to keep it moist and to catch the drippings and stop them burning. On separate oven trays under the bird, roast six quartered brown onions (giving you 24 quarters; reserve the skins to make stock later), a head of garlic, par-cooked potatoes for roasties and halved carrots.

When golden and cooked through, rest the bird. Split the fat and the juices from the pan. Save the fat for later and make a simple gravy from the juices. Serve slices of breast with the potatoes, roasted carrots, gravy and some peas. Reserve the roasted onions and roasted head of garlic.

Make things even more frugal with a bread sauce made with breadcrumbs (made from stale bread) fried in a little of that fat and then exploded into a creamy sauce by stirring in – bit by bit – warm milk infused with a bay leaf and a small onion studded with cloves, if you have them.

Supergreens chicken soup — Homemade chicken stock can be used to make any kind of soup.

Soup it: how to make chicken soup from scratch

Strip all the remaining meat off the carcass of the roast chook, shred and reserve. Then, in a large pot, toast a tablespoon of milk powder in a little of the chicken fat. Throw in the onion skins and the carcass. Barely cover with water. Simmer for three hours. Strain the stock. Blend the stock with eight of the roasted onion quarters, any leftover gravy and the roasted garlic flesh. Fry two diced carrots and a diced stick of celery with a cup of rinsed basmati rice. You can throw in any other orphan veg from the crisper drawer… mushrooms, that lonely head of broccoli, those wilting shallots or a leek. Toast the rice while the veg softens. Pour over the stock and finish cooking. Add the shredded chook meat and thoroughly warm through. Season to taste. Grated parmesan and a knob of butter is good on top.

https://healthimprovements.info/recipes/paprika-chicken-lentil-casserole-shannon-bennett/n921b0j1 — Paprika chicken and lentil casserole.

Casserole it: how to make an easy chicken pasta

Toss the raw thighs, legs and wings in flour and fry them to brown in the remaining leftover fat with some diced bacon. Remove the chook. Fry five cloves of minced garlic for a couple of minutes. Deglaze the pan with a cup of leftover white wine or water. Throw the chook pieces back in, along with the remaining 16 quarters of roasted onion on top. Add a cup of water or so and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes, or until the meat is falling off the bone. Add more water if it starts to dry out. Cook some chunky pasta and drain. Remove the chook pieces and any onions that haven’t broken down and keep warm on the cooked pasta in a big serving dish in the oven. Season the remaining sauce with salt and a squeeze of lemon and cook for a few minutes to thicken. For a more velvety sauce, mix 40g soft butter and 40g plain flour and stir into the sauce. Adjust seasoning again and pour over the pasta and chook. Garnish with herbs or some golden pan-fried breadcrumbs, with the zest from the lemon you squeezed and a good grind of black pepper.