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How I Fed 12 People with One Sam’s/Costco Rotisserie Chicken

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Here’s how I fed 12 people with one Sam’s/Costco Rotisserie Chicken…

Oh how we love us a Rotisserie Chicken from Costco or Sam’s! The cost just under $5.00 and can stretch a long way. Plus they taste really good. And the best part? They are hot and fresh and ready to pick up, take home, and eat right away.

Now, we have a large family. So people often ask how many of these chickens it takes to feed us all. If our entire family is getting together plus guests, I definitely grab two. But on a regular day? We can get by with just one. How??

How I Fed 12 People with One Sam’s/Costco Rotisserie Chicken

Here’s how this worked most recently when we had a grocery stock up day at Sam’s and we brought home a Rotisserie Chicken for lunch…

Who we fed that day: Six adults and six kids.

Auggie still can’t eat solids well enough so I didn’t count him as one of the 12. Our three little girls aren’t big eaters yet and didn’t eat a lot of chicken, so that’s worth noting for how we can stretch one chicken for this many people. Keith had a medium-sized portion. Brayden and Kiya ate as much as the adults.

How we stretched the chicken: We did what we do with almost every meal in that we ate our chicken along with lots of healthy side dish options.

  • Some of the grown-ups used some of the chicken to make Chicken Wraps with tortillas.
  • One adult ate a pile of chicken along with raw carrots and broccoli with ranch.
  • The kids all ate their bites of chicken on a plate with grapes, blackberries, and pickles.
  • Keith ate his along with fruit and some pieces of cheese.
  • Some of the kids had a piece of bread and butter with their chicken and fruit.

Those chickens look small, but I’ve found that we can pull a lot of chicken off those bones.

Another day recently we came home from Costco and simply ate a Rotisserie Chicken with Smoothies. That’s it. We ate until we were satisfied (just 3 adults and 5 kids that day) and we had leftover chicken.

Best tip for stretching a rotisserie chicken:

Serve lots of side dishes with the chicken. Fruits and veggies taste great with a rotisserie chicken and they are inexpensive. Here’s a list of inexpensive side dish ideas to make Rotisserie Chicken a fast food that goes a long way:

  • Grapes
  • Strawberries
  • Blackberries
  • Raspberries
  • Caesar Salad Kit
  • Bread/Rolls and Butter
  • Steamed Veggies
  • Carrot Sticks
  • Smoothies
  • Cottage Cheese
  • Canned Fruit
  • Pickles
  • Tortillas (to turn the chicken into a wrap)

How many Rotisserie Chickens does it take to feed your family?

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Make-Ahead Chicken Bacon Sandwiches

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Get ready to put some Make-Ahead Chicken Bacon Sandwiches into your fridge or freezer for easy meals!

Last week, Justus had brought over a turkey he’d picked up for super cheap but didn’t have freezer space for storage.

Freezer space or not, it’s hard to pass up meat for $0.58/pound!!

I decided to get it baked and out of the way. Matt spent some time getting all the meat off the bone after we got the kids to bed, and the next day I woke up to a huge pan of cooked turkey and a bag of bones to make broth. How many meals can we get with Justus’ $8.75 investment? SO.MANY.MEALS.

I bagged up and froze some of the meat into meal-sized portions for them to take home and use on busy days. I made broth and then Turkey Noodle Soup for our family to enjoy that evening. Then I used a lot of the cooked turkey along with some cooked bacon to put together a lot of sandwiches for all of us to have on hand for easy grab-and-go meals.

While the title of this post lists Chicken as a main ingredient, clearly Turkey and Chicken can be used interchangeably. Use whatever you have. Do you have leftover turkey? Turn it into these sandwiches. Do you have leftover chicken – maybe even Rotisserie chicken? Turn it into these sandwiches. They go together easily, rewarm easily, and can we go wrong with a combination of turkey/chicken, bacon, and cheese? We cannot. These are fantastic!

Make-Ahead Chicken Bacon SandwichesYum

Make-Ahead Chicken Bacon Sandwiches
 
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Ingredients
  • Leftover chicken or turkey
  • Homemade bacon bits
  • Dressing like ranch or honey mustard
  • Sliced Cheese
  • Buns
Instructions
  1. Cut chicken into bite sized pieces and place in a bowl.
  2. Stir in bacon bits.
  3. Assemble sandwiches with a scoop of meat mixture, sauce, and a slice of cheese.
  4. Wrap individually and place in the fridge or freezer to use as needed.
  5. Warm sandwiches in an air fryer, toaster oven, or the oven to heat through and melt the cheese.

You see there are no exact measurements for these ingredients. This is because you simply use what you have and create these sandwiches the way you like. I had Colby jack cheese and pepper jack cheese on hand so I used that along with ranch and honey mustard to create a nice variety of sandwich choices for all of us.

Some of my girlies helped me and we ended up that day making 25 sandwiches and 5 wraps (because I ran out of buns and moved on to tortillas. :)

This is a great “use what you have” kind of recipe. Nothing goes to waste and you can make sandwiches and wraps according to different preferences!

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Ways to Use a Costco Rotisserie Chicken

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We’ve been enjoying some creative ways to use a Costco rotisserie chicken. It’s so inexpensive and delicious!

First, let’s talk about the joys of a Costco rotisserie chicken.

They cost five bucks and they taste wonderful. A rotisserie chicken is a fantastic “convenience food” worth taking advantage of when you hit Costco. Enjoy it with a simple salad and container of berries and you have an amazing meal for around $10!

My Costco chicken friend

We have a dear, precious friend who blesses us with a rotisserie chicken almost every time she goes to Costco. Why does she do this? Because she knows we have our hands full of babies and a lot of mouths to feed. This is a way she blesses our family. Not only does she pick up a chicken for us: she takes the meat off the bone and delivers it in a bag, ready for us to eat! It’s such a gift!!!

Here are some ways we enjoy this gift…

Ways to Use a Costco Rotisserie Chicken

1. Serve the chicken with salad and veggie or fruit, and you have yourself a meal.

Like this, except with rotisserie chicken. I didn’t have a current picture. :) :) :)

2. Sprinkle the chicken into a salad to turn a salad into a meal.

3. Get creative with chicken in the lunchbox.

Send the chicken in a lunchbox along with ranch dressing or barbecue sauce for dipping.

4. Make Chicken-Cheese Melts.

Put chicken on open-faced buns, drizzle ranch or another favorite sauce on the chicken, cover with cheese and broil in the oven, or put them into the air fryer to melt the cheese. These are a favorite!!!

The above picture is a look at how I built our lunch sandwiches one morning. Elias and Matt were heading to their weekly prayer lunch with friends so I made theirs to send with them on paper plates. Malachi was finishing a work project with a deadline at his computer one morning so I fixed a special plate for him. The littles and I finished the rest. :)

5. Make Alfredo and stir in some rotisserie chicken. Amazing!

6. Make Chicken Enchiladas. 

This picture isn’t too exciting, but here’s what it looked like one morning when I was building a great big pan of Creamy Enchiladas to share at Malachi’s tennis team potluck. I had rotisserie chicken in the freezer so I pulled it out and used it to put this together quickly. It was a huge hit at the potluck!

The best way to eat a Costco rotisserie chicken is simply to eat it. :) But it’s fun to have these options too when thinking about creative ways to use up chicken that’s been pulled off the bone.

Do you like to buy a rotisserie chicken at Costco or at another grocery store? What do you do with the chicken?

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Simple Oven Roasted Rotisserie Chicken

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Brace yourselves. Today we’re going to learn to butter up a chicken and rub him down with herbs and spices. This might not be the most precious moment of your day, but I guarantee you will find it to all be worth it after you taste your delicious Oven Roasted Rotisserie Chicken.

simple rotisserie chicken

Now, I’ve buttered many a slice of bread in my day. I would even venture to say I’m pretty good at it. But never before had I buttered a bird – until the first day I made this chicken.

Recipe research told me to “brush on the butter.” But that would require that I melt butter in a saucepan and dirty up a pastry brush. In the name of lazyness simplicity, I just slapped butter on my bird with a butter knife.

Did it work? Meh, good enough. I figure what didn’t get spread on smoothly will just melt and drizzle itself over the skin while baking.

Now, beyond the butter, we’ve got to do a little chicken massage for this recipe too. Don’t freak out about this because your hands will wash up just fine afterward. Sure, rubbing spices over a raw piece of meat in the shape of well, a chicken, will feel strange. But you can do this.

Here’s why the buttering up and the rubbing down are well worth your few minutes awkward chicken moments:

  • You will create a most delicious meal for your family. This chicken is incredibly juicy and flavorful.
  • All the “effort” you put forth to create this chicken will take less than 10 minutes.
  • You’ll save money, because making this chicken at home costs less than buying one pre-made.

So gather up your chickens and let the fun begin.

Simple Oven Roasted Rotisserie Chicken

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Simple Oven Roasted Rotisserie Chicken
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 3-4 pound chicken
  • 3 Tablespoons softened butter
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground pepper
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon thyme
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
Instructions
  1. Place chicken in a 9x13 inch baking dish.
  2. Remove gizzards from the cavity. Discard them or save them to make broth later.
  3. Spread or brush butter over the chicken.
  4. Mix herbs and spices in a bowl, then rub them all over the chicken.
  5. Bake, uncovered, in a 300 degree oven for 2½ hours.

Oh yes. I failed to mention the “reach up into the ‘cavity’ of the chicken and pull out the little bag of gizzards.” I guess I was trying to stop while I was ahead so as to avoid scaring you away from this recipe. But alas, this task cannot be avoided.

I’ve found it’s best to go ahead and say “eeeewwww” while completing this gizzard removal step, because that’s how I feel and it truly is helpful to express oneself verbally during moments of trouble.

So before you butter and rub your chicken, get the gizzard step over with. After that, you will feel empowered to do anything. All hail queen/king chicken preparers. We are all super heroes.

Simple Oven Roasted Rotisserie Chicken

Keep this meal simple by serving this chicken with tossed salad, a steamed veggie, and fresh fruit (like strawberries, pineapple, or cantaloupe).

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