Chicken Stretching

Choosing to live on one income now days seems like a crazy notion - especially when so many mouths need to be fed.

A question I am often asked is how I keep my grocery budget so low and still eat good foods.

So today I am addressing ... How I Afford to Cook for SO MANY Kids and How I Get it Done - Chicken Stretching!

To be completely transparent, I used to be a HUGE foodie. Organic, whole foods. Free range, non-hormone meats. Raw milk.

Those are all amazing things to eat and to feed your family.

If we had unlimited funds, that would be the way we eat.

But for now, compromises needed to be made.

To me, eating good, fresh fruits and veggies is a must.

Eating is a must.

So while some will not agree with some of our food choices, you do you. You do what works for you and your family. No judgement from me.

Let's start with the how do I get it done... It's simple. I can sum it up in one picture.

This is how I get just about anything done. Baby wearing for the win!

I digress. 

In this post, I am going to share with you how I stretch chicken to fit our food budget. I am not going to take the time to share recipes today but be looking for them!

At our house, meat is NOT the majority of the meal. It's just s small portion. 

I know. Crazy. Even to me. I am a steak and potato kinda gal but when you are a growing family of 8, you have to stretch and everyone getting a chicken breast just isn't the normal.

Last Saturday I went to our local grocery. They had family packs of boneless, skinless chicken breast for $1.69/lb. I purchased six pounds. 

Here is how I split and stretched that six pounds into numerous meals.

Using the Instant Pot, we cooked the chicken and shredded it. It was approximately 10-11 cups.

How I split up the 10ish cups:

2 cups - Chicken and Black Bean Enchilada Skillet

2 cups - Chicken Pot Pie

1 cup - Chicken and Noodles

1 cup - Chicken Quesadillas

2 cups - Chicken, Broccoli and Rice Bake

1 cup - White Chicken Chili

1 cup - Chicken Salad

Now some of these are NOT huge meals. We do not have any leftovers. Often time, we have a salad or applesauce to accompany the main dish. However, a couple of these meals made enough leftovers for Andy to take them to work a couple days for lunch.

So I spent around $10.25 and got the meat for seven dinners and at least five lunches for Andy. 

I'd say that's a win!

How about you? How do you make your food budget go further?