Leftover Chicken Meat

Occasionally, you can get a cheap whole Roasting Chicken.  This one was purchased last week, and I cooked it for my family of four. 

We ate the meat from one breast and one thigh. What this meant for my family was leftovers.

I used the meat from the remaining thigh and the wings to make Chicken Cacciatore.  This left me with one breast.

So, I have several ideas for the last of this chicken meat, which can be used on top of salads, ground up and mixed with mayo to make chicken salad, or frozen for a future occasion.  I made chicken burgers with mine.  Right now, however, I'm just going to share with you how to prepare this chicken for future use.  This may seem obvious, but I would not have known how to prepare chicken were it not for my big sister teaching me 6 years ago, after my daughter's baptismal party left me with half of a leftover turkey.

1. Remove the chicken from the bones.  You can do this immediately after everyone is done eating on day 1, or wait a day or two until you've had enough chicken to satisfy your tastes for a while.  I've already passed that point.  I just took the chilled chicken out of the fridge and removed it from the bone with my fingers.  If you're squeamish, you can buy "dietary gloves", like what they use in your local deli when preparing food.

2.  Dice or Shred it.  Because you don't often use leftover chicken as an entire breast, I dice or shred it when I remove it from the bone.  This gives you "bite sized pieces" for future use.  If you shred it finely, and mix it with raw egg and italian mix, you can form it into patties for chicken burgers.  This is what I did with mine.

3.  Store it.  You can freeze cooked chicken meat in zipper baggies, or, if you plan to use it within 2 or 3 days, you can store it in a sealed container in your fridge.  I placed my chicken burgers with my beef burgers in between 2 sheets of waxed paper, on a cookie sheet, in my freezer.  The single breast that I had left gave me enough chicken meat (mixed with 2 eggs and about a tbsp of generic "italian seasoning") to form into 3 patties.  Since I have a family of 4, I will probably serve the kids the regular burgers and save the chicken patties for myself.