Perfect timing here!! Great post!

I wholeheartedly agree. Rotisserie chicken is my go to when I'm not in the mood for cooking, or when it's too darn hot in the summer to turn on the stove. It's so versatile and cuts down on prep and clean-up. And it makes really great sandwiches, soups, burritos, and salads. Hands-down best go-to quick meal.

Yes! I do this too! A couple of things I make with the leftovers: chicken fried rice and chicken and rice soup. Though... I have a question. I make the stock the next day because I remove the chicken from the bone before saving leftovers. This is something my grandmother told me to do, but I'm not sure why. I have it in my head that it goes bad faster if you leave it on the bone, but maybe my grandmother just needed to make stock the next day. Does anyone know if chicken should be removed from bones before refrigerating and, if so, why?

I remove it from the bones when it's still warm because I personally think it's easier to remove that way. I feel like when it cools down it gets compacted and it's harder for me to remove every last morsel.

There's no health reason chicken can't be stored on the bone, but it does expose it to more air if it's been partially carved and then you put it back in the fridge in the packaging it came in. So it can stay nice (not dry out or go bad) longer if you pick the bones and then store them in sealed bags with the air pressed out.

I love this strategy--I used to do this all the time when I lived alone. I also liked that they were smaller than most roasting chickens, plus on friday it was like $5 and I could have something to build a meal around for days and days. It also meant I could reapportion my limited cooking time on busy days such that I didn't have to spend a lot of time on my protein and could focus on making veggies I would actually finish.

Chicken should be fine going into the fridge bone-in. I think your grandmother took the meat off the bone at once cause it saves the hassle of doing it again and the chicken is easy to get at. Then she can make her stock when it's convenient instead of 4 days later.

I've done both, but it saves space in the fridge to take the meat off first (I don't make homemade stock). Plus, I don't trust leftovers beyond 2 days after-the-fact so there's no time to see if goes bad on the bone. But I don't think it does any faster than off the bone.

The thighs <I><B> always make their way into chicken pot pie or a casserole (I'm southern.. we throw gravy or sauce on everything)

A rotisserie chicken usually does us for three to four meals. The last one we bought provided a roast chicken meal, then soft tacos with shredded meat. The carcass and bones, plus water, went into the slow cooker on low overnight with celery, carrots, onion, and peppercorns, and the next morning we had chicken stock! We used that to make a black bean soup that had the rest of the shredded chicken in it as well. So delicious and economical!

We're lucky to get 1.5 meals out of a chicken (2 of us), so I'll buy one hot one for that night. And get 2 of the "day old" cold ones they sell next to them at my supermarket.

To get rid of a whole bunch of leftover roast chicken, I made a chicken pot pie. I used a bag of frozen veggies, a potato, chicken stock and some flour to thicken. Then poured the soupy veggie stuff into a baking dish with the leftover chicken and layered some pie dough on top. Could not have been easier and kept the hubby well-fed for days. :-)

I need a store that sells bigger chickens. One is barely enough for my family (with 2 teenage boys.)

The blog Cheap Healthy Good did this a few years ago and included great recipes: http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2009/02/1-chicken-17-healthy-meals-26-bucks-no.html

I don't disagree with buying well-raised chicken--in fact, the only chicken I eat comes directly from a farmer!--but there are never any hormones in chicken. It's illegal in the U.S.

@jene - I've found that Costco has the biggest chickens.

I love using them in quesadillas or any type of Mexican food and it's also great for quick ragus with whatever pasta I have in the fridge.

I was under the impression that cooked chicken and other poultry only lasts 3 days max after it is cooked. Foodsafety.gov gives it even less time.

This is really awesome, I am so going to do it. Living on my own there are certain things I feel like I miss out on because I can't justify making or buying them for just me, so this is neat!

Agree about the Costco chicken........ I get way more meals from it than my local Acme or ShopRite.......

I highly recommend storing leftover roast chicken meat in stock or water. Submerging the meat -- especially when it's still warm -- helps to keep it moist for later use. This is true even if you're going to use the meat for a "dry" application, like shredding for burritos or sandwiches.

Like many above, I usually try to remove the meat from the bones while the chicken is warm simply because I find it much easier (and more pleasant).

Also, one of the sumptuous pleasures of a freshly roasted chicken (celebrated in Amelie) is immediately eating the 'oysters' while the chicken is still hot. Mmmmm.....

I have admit we rarely ever have much in the way of leftover rotisserie chicken but then with 3 teenage boys involved in sports we don't have much in the way of leftovers... EVER! That said I throw all the bones in my small Rikon Kuhn pressure cooker after dinner is over and make my stock up immediately. We end up with delicious stock, just enough meat for a chicken salad sandwich in hubby's lunch the next day, momentarily full teenagers, and all the mess taken care of in one short evening. Mmmmmm........ now I'm hungry!

This is one of our go-to supermarket purchases. No fuss. No muss. For the two of us, a rotisserie chicken can last for three or four meals, and I always wind up with a freezer full of luscious chicken stock.

This is especially true in the summer, when we love the chicken meat sliced cold on a bed of romaine, with homemade dressing and croutons for a Chicken Caesar Salad luncheon. Or, Cobb Salad. Or, chicken BLT sandwiches.

I like to make Chicken Puttanesca with the dark meat. I make a basic marinara sauce and add dried hot pepper flakes, black Nicoise olives and capers. Cubed cooked chicken goes in to the sauce and gently heated through before it is served over freshly cooked pasta.

Or, I'll make curried chicken salad with raisins and cashews.

And, the list goes on...

I LOVE making chicken salad from rotisserie chicken. I can't abide that canned chicken stuff at all.

There's a restaurant near my office which makes a delicious hot chicken sandwich from the rotisserie chicken that they cook onsite. Take a roll, something light like a kaiser, and split in half. Spread a generous layer of mayo on both halves. Shred hot chicken into medium-ish pieces and pile on to bread. Add sliced tomatoes and a few lettuce leaves. Onions and pickles are optional, if you like.

I usually take the carcass (sp?) and the skin and I make a quick stock with some onions, carrots, and celery. Takes about 45 minutes of simmering and you have a really flavorful stock/broth that can be used for a soup, sauce, gravy etc.

If you want to make good stock, then a well-raised chicken (one that has had space to roam, and has not been injected with growth hormones) is essential. The flavour and texture will be superior, but there are visual signs too. It will have thin, almost transparent skin (yellowish if corn fed); the breastbone will visibly jut out from the breast; the bones will be well-developed and pale, almost white in colour (as opposed to stunted and grey from lack of movement and pooled blood). Of course, this is harder to tell with a pre-cooked rotisserie bird.

Hah! I am currently in the middle of doing exactly this, except with one I roasted myself. Love it.

I love the ideas for using rotisserie chicken but...I would never use one from the grocery story. If there are Amish vendors in your area who sell rotisserie chicken, buy from them. Or buy from a small, local farm.

Chickens raised in large production houses get a 6 inch by 6 inch square to live in. Shortly after hatching, chicks have the ends of their beaks cut off. Performed without anesthesia, large scale growers say it’s to reduce injuries that result when stressed birds are driven to fighting — for space, for food, for their very lives. We can do better by the animals that share our planet. http://write-on-target.com/2012/01/25/project-365-saving-animals-saving-ourselves/

Agreed that a quality chicken is essential. But again, hormones are banned from chicken production in the US. There are many issues to look for but this is not one of them.

I would eat a high quality chicken I roasted myself for three days but not one that I purchased. Way too many hand and way too much bateria floating around if commercially prepped.

There is *no way* you should be making stock with a four day old carcass.

Instead, you need to eat it one night, strip any meat you want to save, freeze any meat you can't eat the next day, and make the stock the same day. Stock will keep two days in the refrigerator. You can bring it to a boil for ten minutes to keep it another day.

Any tips for a single person to get through the dark meat? I've tried to eat it since thighs are cheaper than breasts, but the flavour is terrible. This is the only thing stopping me from roasting a whole chicken.

Been there, done that. We even did the 5 ways in 5 days thing. We have, in order:

Chicken Tacos

Go Take a Hike Chicken Sandwiches

Spicy Chicken Salad

Chicken Omlet

Chicken Hol-e Mole

@Travelingrae - Buy thighs skin-on, bone-in and roast them like a whole chicken - it's delicious! Boneless skinless thighs are nonsense and do have terrible flavor without all of that delicious fat.

If you don't even like bone-in, skin-on thighs, try using the meat in something highly flavored like a curry, with spicy tacos, or in a tomato soup. Just reheat the chicken gently and last-minute, as overcooked/reheated chicken dark meat tastes even more strongly of that icky taste you probably don't like.

I love this! Great post!

Save the bones. I throw them in the crock pot with some tired onions, celery and carrots. Cook low for three hrs and you get a great chicken stock.