I baked a whole chicken last week planning to make a big batch of my latest soup recipe so I could freeze some for quick meals. Yeah, that’s as far as the chicken soup idea went. I hared off in a different and equally delicious direction.
I seasoned the unstuffed halved chicken with pepper and Bragg Organic Sprinkle and baked it skin side up for about 50 minutes. Don’t skip this step. Boiled chicken does not have the same flavor as baked or fried and that extra flavor is important. After baking, I put the whole chicken in a 5 quart pressure cooker with wine, water, pepper, onion and Bragg Organic Sprinkle. I didn’t pressure cook it, I just simmered it for a while to marry all the flavors.
After the chicken cooled I deboned and diced it and added it back to the liquid in the pan. After it cooled I divided the result into four zippered sandwich bags intending to put them in the freezer for later use. I’d done this with turkey earlier in the year and it made a nice quick base for not nearly as delicious (trust me, it’s all in the prep and seasonings) turkey on rice.
When dinner time rolled around I put rice in the cooker and peeled and diced a carrot, a quarter of an onion, a couple parsley sprigs, a celery stalk and 1/4 cup each red and green peppers. I sauteed a couple slices of bacon (chopped) and added the veges and a couple tablespoons of butter.
Once the veges were sufficiently tender I dumped in the sandwich bag of chicken, gave it a thorough stir and once it was heated through, covered it and set it on low to simmer while the rice finished cooking. I served the chicken and veges over rice with a little more butter on top and it was delicious! One cup of rice (uncooked) and one zippered sandwich bag of chicken with the veges makes 4 or 5 healthy servings.
None of the chicken made it into the freezer. We’re eating the last of it as chicken/veges over rice today. Mmmmm.