Gettin' your money's worth out of the whole chicken!

As much as I enjoy the conveniences of buying either thighs or breasts in the boneless form - I do not like the hefty price tag. Even when boneless chicken is on sale, in any form, I haven't ever seen it go under $1.59/lb (and that is RARE) and that just doesn't fly with me. So I started only buying boneless thighs for certain recipes every once in awhile (on sale!) and buy all my other chicken on the bone with the occasional splurge for some frozen boneless skinless breasts.

My all time favorite way to cook a whole chicken is by "beer can" method. This is a very popular way of cooking chicken on the BBQ grill but you can easily substitute cola and bake it in the oven instead. That's exactly what I do (unless we happen to have beer in the house, much prefer the taste of that, YUM!). There is something about how the cola fizzes up and keeps the chicken moist while it bakes. However you do need a special can holding contraption to use this method. It's only around $6 and you can purchase it almost anywhere when spring time and summer hits.You can always roast it the old fashioned way... this is just my personal preferred method.

Always remember to wash your chicken after removing it from the bag. Don't feel bad about playing with the chicken... I always do! Prepare your rub of choice and sprinkle all over the chicken either before or after placing the chicken on the soda can.

Making a rub for the chicken is completely optional. Sometimes simple salt and pepper works if you know that you are only baking the chicken to use the meat for various recipes and only cooking the meat ahead of time. I always season the heck out of everything, especially if I intend to use the skin and bones to make chicken stock (which I always try to!).

I tend to always gravitate towards a sweet/smokey rub combined with garlic powder, onion powder and salt. Each time I make chicken I always use granulated Maggi Chicken Bouillon because the flavor it gives the chicken is wonderful! I just pick it up in the international isle at Walmart.

Bake on a lined roasting pan at 375 degrees for about 2 hours for a 6 lb chicken. If you have one, please use a meat thermometer to test and make sure that internal temperatures near bone are at least 180 degrees. Let cool long enough so that you can peel the meat from the bones without burning your hands!

If I haven't mentioned it before... I'm a little lazy. I utilize my food processor and Kitchenaid for as many things as I can. I LOVE using my Kitchenaid to shred chicken. You can literally rip off the biggest hunks of chicken, throw it in the bowl, turn on the mixer and the meat is shredded as tiny as you allow. It's awesome! It took me literally less than 15 minutes the pull all the chicken (I did TWO whole chickens!), shred it and bag it for the fridge/freezer.

After all the meat is removed this is what I have left in the bowl (this is two chickens worth). At this point I will transfer all scraps into my crock pot and fill to the brim with water. Turn it on low and let it go! I put it on about 7pm and will strain and cool it when I get up in the morning so about 12 hours on low. Now depending on how much you seasoned your chicken before baking will depend on how you season the stock. I season the chicken dramatically before cooking so I do not see a need to add anything to the bones/skin except water but I still usually throw a rough chopped onion and few garlic cloves in there with a fair amount of salt to taste at the end. But if I had only used salt & pepper, I would have added things like carrots, celery, onions and garlic to the crock pot as well to give added flavor. After 12 hours on low, I strain all the fat/meat/bones and measure out the broth.

Once you have divided desired portions into freezer safe containers - let the broth cool and then chill overnight. I prefer to chill overnight so that the following day I can scrape all the fat off the top before I put the containers in the freezer. Leave about an inch or two of head space and it would be wise to first place the containers in the freezer with the lid removed. Let it freeze and allow the liquid to expand before putting the lids on for long term storage.

There's a lot of steps but I think it is well worth it to get the biggest bang for your buck. In this particular instance, I did two whole chickens totaling $10.35 and I was able to get 12 cups of shredded meat for only $.86 per cup and the 16 cups of broth came essentially free in the process!