3 Ways to Finish Leftover Roasted Chicken

It’s never easy to estimate the size of a chicken that you’d like to roast whole, more often than not, we get one that’s too big to finish. Here are some innovative ways to finish up those leftovers!

It’s always more prudent to buy a big chicken from which the dinner guests can’t finish than having one that is too small that the guests remains hungry. However, there’s always that problem of not wanting to have just roast chicken again for your next meal, or two, or even three! Hence I thought this would be a good topic to bring up on and to share some of my favourite ways of finishing off that chicken!

#1 Ginger Chicken with Sesame Oil

Sesame oil chicken

In the past, my family were never big eaters. So even when my mum managed to get a small-sized chicken. we quite often have some leftovers. Here’s one of her ways of finishing them off. Normally, she would first cut up the chicken into smaller pieces (with the bones attached), then refrigerate it before using it for the next meal.

Ingredients:

  • leftover chicken
  • ½ thumb of ginger,  finely shredded
  • 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon of sesame oil
  • ¼ cup of water
  • salt to taste

Steps:

  1. Heat up a medium-sized claypot or a wok, and add in the sesame oil and ginger when the pot/wok is relatively hot.
  2. Once the ginger starts sizzling, add in the chicken and dark soy sauce. Stir them to mix it well with the ginger.
  3. Add in the water and cover the pot/wok and let it simmer for 5-9 minutes, or until the liquid mostly evaporates.
  4. Add in some salt to taste and it’s ready to be served with steamed rice!

#2 Pesto Chicken with Potatoes

This is a dish I created when I was on vacation, with cooking facilities provided. I was figuring out what to do with some leftover chicken, pesto, potatoes and voila, this one-dish-meal was created!

Ingredients:

  • leftover chicken, shredded
  • 6-8 baby potatoes, boiled and cut into halves
  • 2 medium sized carrots, boiled and cut-up to an inch long
  • 5 tablespoons of pesto (or more if it doesn’t roughly coat all the ingredients)
  • 2 shallots, chopped
  • salt to taste

Steps:

  1. In a frying pan, add in the pesto and .shallots and heat it up.
  2. Once the shallots start to soften, add in the chicken and stir.
  3. Then add in the boiled potatoes and carrots, stirring the whole time.
  4. If you feel that the pesto is not enough, this is the time to add more.
  5. Once most of the ingredients are roughly coated with pesto, you may add some salt to taste.
  6. The dish is now ready to be served.

Alternatives: Instead of potatoes and carrots, you can turn this recipe into a pasta bake dish. Follow the above steps up to Step 2, then add in some cooked pasta like penne or macaroni, then empty those ingredients into a baking dish. Add some shredded mozzarella and cheddar on top and let it bake for 12 – 15 minutes.  And presto, a simple pasta dish is done!

#3 Chicken Salad with Avocado

Chicken and Avocado Salad

All you need to do is to shred the chicken meat from the bones. Once done, you can even re-use the chicken bone by making chicken stock out of it to use for other dishes! There, a two-in-one deal in not wasting that chicken.

Ingredients:

  • leftover chicken, shredded and refrigerated
  • 4 tablespoons of mayonnaise
  • ½ shallot, minced well
  • pinch of ground pepper
  • salt to taste
  • juice of ½ a lemon
  • ½ teaspoon of granulated sugar
  • ½ medium red pepper, chopped
  • one ripe avocado, chopped

Steps:

  1. In a large mixing bowl, add in the mayonnaise, shallots, lemon juice, ground pepper, sugar and salt and mix well.
  2. Add in the chicken and red pepper and stir them until the salad sauce has coated them.
  3. On your serving plate, arrange the chopped avocado in the middle and spoon the chicken salad on top!
  4. There, a simple entrée dish is ready to be enjoyed!

Hope these are useful tips for you! And what I like about them is that there is no wastage! And best of all, even by not wasting, we can use different ways to enjoy the leftover chicken! Or even turkey…

About the author

Michelle WY

An adventurous foodie lost in one of the gastronomic capitals of the world and loving every moment of it! I like to cook too, making my adventures in France very fun and enjoyable as I eat, taste then try or innovate recipes to share with you! My motto: Diet starts Tomorrow!

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