What’s for dinner? Here are 30 rotisserie chicken ideas!
How many times have you stood in front of your open refrigerator hoping that dinner would suddenly materialize or at least an idea for a quick dinner would present itself? Well, luckily, I can help you with this for the next 30 days! Enter bulk meal cooking . . . let me explain.
I am sure that you have heard about freezer cooking and meal prep. Those meal plans leave you with somewhat mushy and frankly boring dinners all week long. However, what I am teaching you how to do, puts totally fresh and 100% different flavors of meals on your table every night in under 30 minutes of active cook time.
All you need to do is 1 1/2 hours of prep at the beginning of the week. I call this method bulk meal cooking. It focuses on precooking a large amount of protein all at once, and then prepackaging it for later in the week.
The Method
Let me introduce you to a simple method of cooking a large batch of chicken at the beginning of each week and then basically assembling your dinner just before eating. What you need to do, is simply calculate how much chicken you will need for the week. Place the chicken in a large kettle filled with salted water. Bring to a boil and drop your chicken into the water carefully. Cook until done about 15 minutes. Internal Temperature needs to reach 165 degrees F. If you are cooking from frozen, add about 50% more cooking time.
This method started about 10 years ago when I would make two beer can chickens on the grill at the same time to maximize propane/pellet usage. It’s just as easy to cook one chicken as it is to cook two. Originally, I wondered what we would do with all of that cooked chicken meat. Well, I quickly found out what a HUGE time savings having precooked chicken on hand would be.
It slowly morphed from me packing a few pieces of precooked chicken in my husbands lunch, to me guarding it for my planned dinners, because it’s a go to for my teens to make a healthy snack! Chicken is also a more healthy option for dinner than red meat. But don’t get me wrong . . . I have great bulk meal cooking ideas for all types of meat.
Slightly more expensive alternative- but equally delicious
However, if you prefer to use store bought rotisserie chicken, it is delicious as well. Remember to save time to shred your chicken. While being sold at a pricing premium, our store offers shredded Rotisserie chicken for sale in the prepared meals/ grab and go section of the market. This is a convenient option that I sometimes utilize when time is of the essence! Or my teens have eaten all of my precooked chicken.
I have included a list below of fantastic recipes, all favorites of our family that we eat most nights. Simply click on any of the blue hyperlinked recipe names to bring up the fantastic recipe! Either way, the following recipes will be a delicious addition to your cooking repertoire. Happy Cooking!
3.) Chicken Stir Fry
5.) Copycat Chicken Taco Bell Power Bowls
8.) Aram Sandwich
9.) Creamy One pot chicken and ricotta spaghetti
10.) Chicken Pot Pie
11.) Chicken Quesadilla
12.) Delicious Chicken Salad, Curry Chicken Salad, Tarragon Chicken Salad, Honey Chicken Salad, BLT Chicken Salad
13.) Poppy Seed Chicken
14.) BLT Chicken Salad
15.) Chicken Spaghetti
16.) Bacon Avocado Chicken Salad
17.) Chicken Beatrice
18.) White Chicken Chili
20.) Cheesy White Chicken Lasagna
21.) Creamy Chicken Bacon Ziti
22.) Penne with Tomato and Leek Sauce
23.) Chicken Zip Zoop
24.) Chicken, Bacon and White Bean Soup (Portuguese Style
25.) King Ranch Chicken Mac & Cheese
27.) Chicken Caesar Wraps
28.) French Bread Chicken Caprese Sandwich
30.) Chicken Cobb Salad
What a wonderful post with so many yummy ideas! Congrats!!!! Beautiful job!
Thanks, Connie! On one of those nights that the house is full of kids and friends, you will have to try the pizza’s along with the white chicken chili.
Yes! We love doing this with a rotisserie chicken- we use it mainly for salad lunches during the week & then additional things like wraps, sandwiches, nachos, etc. Great variety of recipes here, going to pin this for later. Thanks!
Isn’t it so nice having the protein cooked and ready to go? What a huge time savings.
What an awesome list! I will be using some of these to finish off my meal plan for this month 🙂
I am glad you like them. Some even come together in 15 minutes! Happy Cooking!
This is an awesome list! We use rotisserie chicken as a regular staple in my house because if you take the time to break it down it’s enough for two meals. Some of these 30 ideas I hadn’t even thought of! Now my meal planning for next week just got more exciting!
Isn’t having cooked chicken in the fridge a game changer? I currently have three boxes of it (Rotisserie, Grilled and Poached) Maybe I am a little too obsessed with it! Enjoy!
You gave me so many ideas that never came to my mind. My family loves getting rotisserie chickens from our local grocery store but we usually just have it with sides or on top of a salad. Dinner is about to get a whole new level of interesting. lol
Oh, I am so happy that you got some new ideas from the list. We always have a box of cooked chicken in the fridge and it makes lunch and dinner so much easier. Enjoy!