Recipes with Costco Rotisserie Chicken PLUS a free freezer meal planner (2024)

FAQs

How many meals can you get out of a rotisserie chicken? ›

You can easily make 5 meals out of one rotisserie chicken from the store. A rotisserie chicken is perfect for meal planning and I think you'll love that these meals come together quickly too.

One rotisserie chicken equals about 4 cups of shredded chicken, both white and dark meat (skin not included). Typically, the average chicken would mean about 12 ounces of light meat and 8 ounces of dark meat (skin not included), which totals to about 1,037 calories.

(Just consider the fact that Costco sells, on average, over more than 100 million rotisserie chickens per year.) When it comes to feeding your family, you'll have to weigh the cost of convenience versus the amount of meat. A single rotisserie chicken should feed three or four people, on average.

When it comes to weight loss, rotisserie chicken is certainly better than similar options like chicken nuggets or fried chicken sandwiches. It has a high protein content while being lower in calories than these alternatives.

“You're not going to get fiber, but the protein is going to be filling and that's a good thing. Because the whole chicken is around 1,000 calories, that's still considered a low-calorie diet. It's doable [to lose weight], but it doesn't have my seal of approval as a healthy diet,” she added.

While chicken can be a versatile and convenient protein to cook, if your diet doesn't have a diverse protein profile, you lose out on some key nutrients—including essential fats, such as omega-3s. "Eating chicken every day as your sole protein source could result in some nutrient gaps," says Burgess.

How Much Chicken Do You Get from a Rotisserie Chicken? The average rotisserie chicken weighs about 2 pounds and yields about 3 cups of chicken (2 cups of white meat and 1 cup of dark meat).

It's worth noting that Costco calls the dish "Seasoned Rotisserie Chicken" and has the "seasoning" ingredients listed on the label: salt, sodium phosphates, hydrolyzed casein, modified cornstarch, sugar, dextrose, chicken broth, isolated soy protein lecithin and mono-and-diglycerides.

Goldstein interviewed Harshavardhan Thippareddi, PhD, professor of poultry science at the University of Georgia, who explained that chickens are injected with phosphate to keep them juicy through the rotisserie preparation process, and some consumers may interpret this addition as a soapy or chemical-like flavor.

Keep in mind that the size of the chickens and the specific cuts can vary, so adjust accordingly based on the actual portion sizes you're using. So, you would need approximately 10 chickens to feed about twenty people with three pieces each (thighs, legs, and wings).

Why are Costco rotisserie chickens so big? ›

The average Costco rotisserie chicken weighs three pounds fully cooked. The birds raised for Costco are broiler chickens who have been genetically modified through breeding to grow very large, very quickly. About 100 years ago in 1925, chickens lived for 112 days before being slaughtered at 2.5 pounds.

Here's a general guideline: 1. **Whole Chicken:** If you're roasting whole chickens, you'll typically need about 1/2 to 3/4 pound of chicken per person. For 30 people, you'd need approximately 15 to 22.5 pounds of whole chicken.

In 2019, the grocer established its own massive chicken production complex in Fremont, Nebraska, and partnered with a company called Lincoln Premium Poultry (or LPP) to manage it.

But what about our furry friends? Can dogs enjoy this delicious treat too? The answer is a resounding yes! Dogs can indeed eat rotisserie chicken, and it can be a nutritious and tasty addition to their diet.

Therefore, rotisserie chicken is a much healthier choice. Also, you can easily manage your calorie, fat, and protein intake by choosing either light or dark meat and choosing whether to eat the skin.

Step 4: Roast the first chicken and get 5 meals out of it.

Meal 5: Eat the roasted chicken with several side dishes as your meal for the night, but be sure that there is plenty of meat left to use for other meals. Meals 6-8: After you eat, shred and/or cube the rest of the chicken that you can take off the carcass.

A four- to five-pound chicken is commonly referred to as a broiler-fryer and will easily serve four to six people. The chicken is done when it registers 165°F in the thickest part of the thigh.

I turned Costco's $5 rotisserie chicken into five easy meals for two people. I like using the chicken to make quesadillas, burrito bowls, and pasta dishes. The chicken is also good to add to baked potatoes and the bones can be used to make a tasty broth.

If you remove both the bones as well as the skin from your bird, you can expect about 60% of the chicken to be meat. A 2.2-pound chicken would have about 1.7 pounds of meat, for instance. With that said, rotisserie chickens are convenient, but they don't necessarily have the most meat.