Tuesday's tip: Buy whole chickens

More and more I've started buying whole chickens instead of chicken pieces. I find I not only get more bang for my buck, but I also save time on meal preparation as I only need to cook the chicken once but can use it for several meals.

The high cost of free range and organic chicken means I try to look for ways to stretch them further, and buying whole chickens is the best way I've found to do this.

Most weeks I roast up a chicken one night to serve as part of a roast meal. After dinner I shred the leftover chicken from the carcasse and store it in the fridge to make Mexican rollups, and/or lunch and dinner for the following day (depending on how big the original chicken was).

For lunch I might use the leftover chicken in a Chunky salad, and for dinner I might make a Satay chicken salad or mix it through Alfredo sauce served over fettucine.

The chicken skin and carcasse don't go to waste either. They get boiled up to make a delicious chicken stock that will be the base of many more meals.

I haven't attempted to cut up a whole chicken into its various parts yet, but this You Tube video makes it look doable. And that could be a great way to get more variety into my chicken dishes.

For more on this topic, see Keeper of the Home's excellent post about using whole chickens to prevent wastage.