Do you have to stretch one chicken breast to feed many? These nine easy recipe ideas will help you to stretch a little bit of meat and save money.
Meat is one of the more expensive items on the shopping list, so meat-stretcher recipes save money while appeasing the family’s meat lovers.
We are a family of four with two teen children. By adding lots of vegetables and some carbs to a dish, we can still stretch one chicken breast between us and still feel satiated.
If you have a big family or teenage boys, you may need more than a single chicken breast, but the idea is the same – take a small amount of meat and stretch it to feed many.
Below are some of my favourite recipes with one chicken breast. While there are nine main chicken breast dinner ideas, you can create a ton of variation by mixing and matching vegetables, starches and different flavourings like herbs, spices, and sauces.
Single Chicken Breast Ideas for Family Dinners
The key to stretching a little bit of meat is to use it as a flavour accent. Choose recipes where the chicken can be bulked up with lots of vegetables and some grains or starches.
Pasta dishes are a great example, but they are not the only option! Here are 7 (plus a few extra) ideas for stretching one chicken breast.
1. Chicken Pie
Chicken pie is cooked chicken and any available vegetables bound in a basic white sauce and then wrapped in pastry.
For a dairy-free version, use pureed cauliflower instead of milk in the white sauce. It tastes delicious (no one will even know if you don’t tell them) and boosts the vegetable quota.
Or you can use a sauce made with stock instead. For flavour variations, add different herbs or make a mustard sauce or a cheese sauce.
To make the dish extra filling, you can add some white beans like cannellini to the pie filling.
An alternative to making a single pie is to make individual pastries.
2. Chicken Pizzas
Pizzas are always a favourite way to stretch ingredients.
I like to keep a few pita bread rounds and some homemade pizza sauce in the freezer for a quick and easy meal when you don’t feel like cooking.
To make pizza even easier, you can freeze portions of leftover roast chicken for a speedy pizza topping.
My favourite combo is a pesto sauce, leftover chicken and leftover vegetables, topped with cheese and maybe some olives, but the sky is the limit when it comes to creating your favourite toppings.
Have leftover feta? Maybe some spinach that needs to be used up? Pizza is the perfect vehicle for using up bits and bobs in the fridge.
3. Chicken Pasta
Add chicken to mac and cheese or pasta carbonara for a quick, easy and frugal meal. Our favourite is the chicken and pea pasta pictured above.
4. Chicken Stir Fry
Stir fry is my favourite way to stretch any kind of meat – throw in a lot of vegetables, drizzle with a homemade sauce and serve with a starch: rice or noodles.
The dish pictured above is chicken and cashew stir fry with oyster sauce and honey, but any stir fry sauce and vegetable combination works, like this ginger stir fry.
5. Chicken Mornay
Chicken Mornay is essentially chicken in white sauce (again, sub in cauliflower puree for a dairy-free alternative). To serve a mornay as a complete, one-pot meal, add in some vegetables and rice or pasta, like this tuna mornay.
Another way to use a mornay (as well as in a pie, as noted above) is as a crepe filling (very retro but still delicious!). Fry some mushrooms to add to your chicken mornay and wrap them in crepes for chicken and mushroom crepes.
6. Chicken Curry
I’m a lover of curries. The trick to serving curry to young children is to tone down or eliminate the chilli. Here’s a super easy chicken curry from one of my favourite recipe blogs, Recipe Tin Eats.
Other saucy chicken and rice dishes include this creamy chicken dish and this Moroccan-inspired chicken dish.
7. Chicken Quiche or Fritatta
A quick is another great way to combine a small amount of chicken with vegetables into one dish. Similar to a pie, but the eggs bind the ingredients rather than a white sauce. An alternative to quiche is a frittata, essentially a crustless quiche.
Serve with a side salad for a light summer meal or some homemade chips for a more filling fare.
8. Chicken Burritos
Burritos are a great way to stretch a chicken breast. Because they also include beans, a burrito can be super filling, even with a tiny bit of chicken.
Here’s my version of chicken and bean burritos.
An alternative is to make chicken and bean nachos!
9. Chicken and Rice
Whether it’s a chicken and mushroom risotto, chicken fried rice, or a pilaf like the one pictured above, chicken and rice is yet another way to make a little bit of chicken go further.
These recipes offer a wide variety of flavours (ie. Mexican burritos or Chinese stir fry) while combining a little bit of chicken and a selection of cheaper vegetables and starches.
Sustainable eating guides suggest that if we’re going to eat meat, we should eat less and use it as an accompaniment rather than the main attraction of a dish.
These chicken-stretching recipes do just that, appeasing the meat lovers in the family while saving money and eating more in a sustainable way.
What’s your favourite way to stretch chicken?
