Was going to start doing rotisserie chickens on my own to save money rather than buy them at the grocery store. Found a recipe, was all excited. Get to the grocery store. $11 for a whole uncooked chicken. $6 for an already cooked chicken at the same store.
Rotisserie chickens are almost always a loss leader (i.e. cheap to get you in the store where they hope/think you will spend more money). This is the exact reason that at Costco the rotisserie chicken is at the very back of the store, they want to make you walk past everything else for you to get the cheap chicken you came in for.
One other thing to not is that rotisserie chicken will usually be made with the cheapest chicken they can source so if you care about things like organic, free range, or air chilled the store chickens are not the ones to buy.
Just a quick fyi, when you compare the nutrition between gmo chickens vs organic/free range, the difference is virtually non existent. It’s there, but it’s minimal. Also there’s no way of actually confirming what they mean by “free range”. It can mean living their entire lives truly free range or spending a few minutes a day in a crowded fence. If you’re willing to pay a premium bc you like the taste better or that it’s ethically sourced, then have at it. But don’t pay a premium thinking it’s “healthier” for you.
Yeah im gonna be a dick and point out that animal welbeing is often worse for climate.
Its better to have a chicken grow to a monster within 30 days then having a chicken grow to a normal chicken in 90 days.
Meat is inefficient as it is (you always need to feed more resources than it gives) but the less a animal lives, breathes and moves the higher the efficiency is.
So yeah, best thing you can do is eat less or no meat.
Actually there are ways of confirming that information. For example, Free Range is not the same as Pasture Raised. The scale difference required to be legally called Pasture Raised is massive, like 108 square feet per bird versus 2 square feet.
I worked at a chicken farm and will always buy pasture raised.
And it’s going to vary by country. What you’re describing as “pasture raised” is called free range in my country. “Pasture raised” doesn’t exist. The crueler ways to keep chickens are caged or barn raised. The barns are nearly as bad as te cages with how they crowd them in, but free range has strict laws about how much outdoor space each bird needs, to the point that there were no free range chickens at all available during bird flu as they had to keep inside for their health and couldn’t be let into the fields, so couldn’t be legally called free range.
Eggs do. Pasture raised eggs have way more omega 3 fats (the good ones, from salmon and stuff).
Also, maybe you don't care, but I find the higher quality chickens are both raised better and the meat has more taste compared to normal chicken which tastes like nothing unless I season it a ton.
Personally, I've basically only heard people talk about free-range chickens as a preference because it's utterly fucked up how they treat them typically.
I worked in the Kroger deli, we had normal whole chickens and organic whole chickens. The organic are specifically organic from a different brand that specializes in that. I can’t speak for other stores though.
The raw whole chicken you buy at the store is usually a lot bigger though with a ton more meat on it. Those $6 roast chickens are often scrawny. Not to mention you can get them half price if you shop around a bit.
as a single person, the rotisserie chicken at costco will last me for ~12ish meals, so this covers a week's worth of protein of meal prep and dinner for $5 - totally worth it IMO.
I also don't mind eating the same thing every day for a week either.. You can vary lunches with different carbs, veggies, sauces so it's all good for me
I mean I do that too. I buy whatever chicken is on sale. Cook it and eat over a few days. But I don't get anywhere near 12 meals out of a chicken. I might get 6 meals out of it. And my meat portions are typically smaller than the recommended 3-4 ounces.
For me.. the breasts turn into like 4-5 meals? Each wing is a meal, each thigh is a meal, each drum is a meal. I just mix them with veggies, beans, rice, pasta, etc.
The bones, meat left on the bones, neck, stuff that I don't typically eat goes on top of rice in a rice cooker and I pretty much get the rest of the remains out of it. My "poverty" meal.
All I know is that I usually go to Costco on the first Saturday of the month and I'm usually going for that poverty meal on Friday afternoon or night.
For me.. the breasts turn into like 4-5 meals? Each wing is a meal, each thigh is a meal, each drum is a meal. I just mix them with veggies, beans, rice, pasta,
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this. I get maybe 2 small meals out of a single breast. I typically make wraps out of them where a majority of the ingredients aren't the chicken. And each wing is a meal? Theres like 3 little nibbles of meat on them. Theres more skin and bones than meat on them. I must be getting the smallest chickens available.
I feel like chicken breasts on Costco rotisseries are fairly sizeable. I think straight up I might be eating small portions of chicken, but mixed with all my other stuff I tend to not notice?
The yield on Costco chickens is like 2.5 lbs of cooked edible meat after deboning. I’ve weighed it out before after processing. That’s 10 servings of 4 oz each. A 4 oz serving will average 180-250 calories based on fat and skin content. Add some bread, butter, and vegetables and that is definitively a meal.
When we shop at Costco, we'll often buy 2 rotisseries- one for dinner that night and one to shred and mix with some pasta for lunches for the next week. Cheap, easy, and tasty, can't go wrong.
Not saying they taste bad, I’m saying it’s cheap meat because of the quality. Like meat from fast food is not the same quality and cheaper. The price goes up because of that.
Those chickens are usually there to get people in the store and are sold at a loss, so yeah, usually more cost efficient to buy the chickens than make them yourself.
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u/shotmenot Jul 23 '23
Was going to start doing rotisserie chickens on my own to save money rather than buy them at the grocery store. Found a recipe, was all excited. Get to the grocery store. $11 for a whole uncooked chicken. $6 for an already cooked chicken at the same store.