One of the best ways to save money on food is to cook at home. I have already written about how I keep grocery prices lower with cost comparisons from various stores. Today I’m going to focus on how to prepare 12 or more low-cost meals–and all from just one whole chicken!

The Value of a Whole Chicken

When I first started doing my price comparisons, I was looking for the lowest price per kilo on chicken breasts. If you remember from my notes, the best price was 5.19 euros per kilo at Mercadona. As I got more comfortable cooking, I started to look at other cuts of chicken, and was really impressed by the price per kilo of a whole chicken: 2.18 euros per kilo!

The only problem was that I didn’t know how to cook a whole chicken. But for a savings of 3.01 euros per kilo, I was sure willing to learn!

In the end, I learned how to cook a chicken with a lot of trial and error. Here is what I do:

Preparing a Whole Chicken

Utensils:

• Oven (not all Spanish apartments have these!)
• Baking Dish
• Knife
• Cutting Board
• Fork
• Hot Pads or Folded Towels

Ingredients:

• Chicken
• Olive Oil
• Two Lemons
• 3 Potatoes
• 2 Carrots
• 2 Cloves of Garlic (Optional)
• Spices to Taste (I use salt, pepper, rosemary, and crushed chili peppers)

Process:

Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. First, drizzle olive oil on the chicken to coat the surface. This will help your spices stick. Then season both sides of the chicken. I do one entire side with salt, pepper, and rosemary, then crush about 3 dried chili peppers over the bird. I finish it by squeezing the juice of half a lemon over the surface. Flip the bird and repeat each step.

Next, take the second lemon and cut off the two ends and 4 edges:

Poke each side with a fork to start to release the juice. Put the lemon inside of the chicken. Now you’re ready to start cooking. Cook for 45 minutes.

As the bird is cooking, you’re going to want to prep the sides. Cut the potatoes and carrots, peel the garlic cloves, and leave them whole.

After 45 minutes, take out the chicken and flip it over. Add the potatoes, carrots, and garlic cloves. Drizzle in olive oil and add a few dashes of salt. Cook for 45 more minutes. When you are finished, you should have something like this:

Breaking Down A Whole Chicken into Meals

The first meal you get from your whole chicken should be a leg and a wing with a side of potatoes and carrots. This will feed 2 people (2 meals).

The next meal, that I make every time, is made from all of the chicken scraps, juices, and extra carrots and potatoes. Cook a cup of rice and mix it in.

This simple meal is enough to feed two people twice (4 meals)

Now we are left with two chicken breasts. Depending on what you make, you can get 2-4 meals out of each one. Let’s look at a couple of options.

I love spicy tacos. I haven’t had much luck finding jalapenos here, so I just use green peppers. To make up for it, I cut one chicken breast, add a very small amount of olive oil to a frying pan, break open some dried chili peppers, and fry the chicken chunks in the mixture. If you can’t make your pico de gallo spicy, make your chicken spicy!

When we make chicken tacos, it feeds two of us twice using one chicken breast (4 meals).

Chicken Fried Rice is a nice throwback to my college days. The only difference is, I couldn’t cook then! More likely, I didn’t have the motivation to try. This easy recipe will feed two of us once (2 meals).

Whole Chicken, Whole Lot of Meals

We’ve now used up all of the components of a whole chicken. As promised by the title, you’ve got 12 potential meals out of just one chicken. However, the possibilities are endless. You could cook a whole chicken every week, and apart from the first two dishes, have an incredible variety. Pasta is a good way to stretch your meals from 2 to 4:

One chicken breast thrown into 500 grams of cooked pasta. Onions and green peppers fried in olive oil with crushed chili peppers are then added to the pasta. It’s great with red or white sauce. I like to add the following spices to my sauces: 2 teaspoons of garlic powder, 1 teaspoon each of curry powder, cumin, and paprika, and about 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. Mix well. Toss on cheese, and voila!

These pasta meals feed 2 people twice (4 meals).

Another good option is couscous:

You may be starting to see a pattern here: the fried onion and green pepper combo is useful in a variety of meals. When making couscous, you’re supposed to heat the water first. During this step, I like to throw in a flavor cube. These typically come in chicken, beef, or vegetable, and a 12 pack only costs about 1 euro. I toss one cup of couscous into one cup of almost boiling flavored water, cover it for 5 minutes, then dump in the onions, green peppers, and chicken.

With one cup of couscous, 2 people can eat once (2 meals). You could always double the amount of couscous, but I really like this ratio.

Final Thoughts

Although I was hesitant to cook a whole chicken, I’m really glad I took the time to learn. Not only has it significantly cut my food costs, but it also helped me branch out and try other new meals. Before coming to Spain, I could count on one hand the meals I was comfortable preparing alone. This post alone has more meals than that!

Do you have any other chicken dishes you like to make? Comment below.