It’s a weeknight and you can’t be bothered cooking. You look in the fridge and there’s the leftover rotisserie chicken from the night before. Now you’re thinking, “how can I make leftover chicken taste better?” You could make a leftover roast chicken and mayonnaise sandwich. But that’s boring. This is your opportunity to get creative in the kitchen without the effort!
4 Easy Leftover Chicken Recipes
To give you inspiration, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best ways you can make the most out of your chicken leftovers. From roast chicken salads, chicken curries, ramen broth, and more. Basically, that’s your meal prep sorted for the week. You’re welcome.
1. Leftover chicken salad
Recipe: Super flavourful chicken salad
A good salad is flavoursome and adding leftover roast chicken is a one-way ticket to flavour town. The chicken meat is already seasoned and comes off the bone easily. All you have to do is get your favourite salad combination together, shred your chicken into the bowl and voila!
How to adapt with leftovers
Swap out leftover chicken wings for leftover roast chicken. Chicken can be added cold or warmed up in a pan. This recipe also works with leftover roast pork.
2. Leftover chicken soup casserole
Recipe: Chicken noodle soup casserole
Stretch your dollar even further by using the leftover chicken carcass to make chicken stock. Freeze the chicken stock so you can make chicken soup later on in the week. Combine the chicken stock with the forgotten vegetables at the back of your fridge to make a quick and easy chicken and veg soup. Go one step further and make a simple ramen broth, or if you really want to get creative, try this chicken soup casserole.
How to adapt with leftovers
Skip the first step of this casserole recipe by using the pre-cooked leftover chicken instead of poaching raw chicken. This leftover chicken recipe also works with leftover ham.
3. Leftover chicken curry
Recipe: Coconut Cauliflower Curry
A warm curry is a great healthy lunch recipe idea. But if you don’t have time to marinate chicken or chop up cauliflower, using roast chicken leftovers is a timesaving substitute.
How to adapt with leftovers
Replace cauliflower with leftover roast chicken. This recipe also works with leftover roast lamb.
4. Leftover fried chicken bowl
Cold fried chicken is delicious just on its own. But chicken wings in cold noodle bowls are somethin’ else. A good noodle bowl should be loud with its flavours and adding cold chicken wings does just that. Toss the chicken with cold noodles, mix whatever vegetables you have and then just add a tasty sauce – simple!
Fry any leftover roast chicken skin
Whether fresh out of the oven or straight off the Coles rotisserie – crispy chicken skin is one of the simple pleasures in life. This is why you should save the leftover chicken skin and fry it up. You can use the crispy chicken skin to garnish salads or sprinkle it on top of risotto and pasta for an extra kick.
How long does leftover chicken last in the fridge?
It’s important to know just how long chicken can last in the fridge. Chicken is one meat you don’t want to mess with when it comes to salmonella poisoning. There are a lot of variables when it comes to determining how long you can safely refrigerate cooked chicken. But as a general rule of thumb cooked chicken shouldn’t be left in the fridge for more than three to four days.
Can you freeze leftover chicken?
You can freeze your leftover chicken but you need to make sure it is stored correctly. After cooking chicken, immediately store any extras in an airtight food storage container. When stored securely, cooked chicken can spend four months in the freezer before it’s past its prime.
Looking for more chicken recipe ideas?
If you’re looking for more ideas on how to use leftover chicken, check out our favourite ways to give Christmas leftovers a second chance. If you’re searching for chicken recipes to start from scratch try Nat’s What I Reckon’s tasty chicken wings recipe or Sam Wood’s healthy homemade satay chicken burger recipe.
If you want to bag a hot discount on your roast chicken, it’s worth noting that you can stop by our Coles coupon page to nab up to 15% off your groceries as well as get free delivery on all orders over $250. Thank us later!
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