6 Delicious Uses for Leftover Chicken
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Chicken is one of the more economical types of meat and one that everyone in my family eats, so we tend to have it a lot. We typically don’t have much leftover chicken unless I make extra on purpose. I usually buy boneless, skinless breasts and one of the best ways I’ve discovered to make a little feed our family of five is to cut them all into cutlets.
I just slice each breast in half lengthwise before cooking. Doing so creates more reasonable portion sizes for most of us – the girls and I usually just have one cutlet each, while the boys have two. That means that I can still feed all five of us with 3 or 4 breasts.
Sometimes I’ll roast a whole chicken or purposely cook extra breasts for other meals, but each of these ideas works well for leftover chicken, too – even if you just store a little bit of leftover in the freezer from several meals until there’s enough to use for something else.
1. Top a salad
I love chicken on a salad. In the summer, I like to pair it with grapes and strawberries. In the winter, it’s delicious with apples and walnuts.
2. Add it to soup
I love chicken in soup. The best part is it usually doesn’t take much. My two favorite soups with chicken are probably the chicken gnocchi and taco soup recipes I shared in my favorite soup recipes post. This week I also tried the chicken pot pie soup recipe from Skinny Taste, which turned out really good. It tastes just like the inside of a chicken pot pie.
3. Put it in a pie
If the chicken pot pie soup doesn’t sound good to you, how about an actual chicken pot pie?
4. Make chicken salad
My mother-in-law makes the best chicken salad, but mine’s not too shabby so I’ll give it a go when I’ve got some leftover chicken. I like it with walnuts and grapes, but I have to make it plain for the boys. Which is your favorite?
5. Mix it into a casserole
I’ve got a couple of really good chicken casserole recipes. Most of my crew prefers my chicken and broccoli casserole, but there’s also a really good one involving an entire container of sour cream and some Ritz crackers.
6. Make quesadillas
Chicken quesadillas are a family favorite, so they usually get their own chicken, rather than leftovers. Still, if there’s enough leftover chicken, quesadillas are always a good choice.
What do you like to do with leftover chicken?
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
Chicken Pot Pie is a frequent use of left over chicken in our house. I put baking Power biscuits on top instead of pie crust. We also sometimes use it in a fritata. With the amount of sour cream and salsa my family puts on I can hide just about anything in a Fritata. We also make it into fried rice and less often a stir fry.