This is one of my staple recipes. I probably make it 3 times a month. It’s cheap. It’s easy. It’s healthy. AND I can use the leftover bones and veggies to make chicken stock.
Let’s jump right in! This whole chicken recipe has a total of 7 ingredients (plus spices) and like I said above, you can use the leftovers to create soup bases or “cream of whatever” soups! Here is my next Five Dollar Dinner that will save you money.
Click HEREfor the recipe and calorie breakdown.
Now. Let’s figure out the cost of this delicious meal!!
Whole Chicken: I only buy these when they are $1/ lb. I try to find 4-5 pound birds because that is what I’m used to cooking and it fits in my crock pot. You can opt for a smaller bird if you have a smaller family, or a larger bird if you have more mouths to feed or LOVE leftovers!! 🙂 The cost of my chicken was $4.90.
Baby Carrots: I love my crock pot but sometimes I wish it was a bit bigger. My boys LOVE soft cooked carrots but because the chicken takes up so much room, I can’t fit more carrots to cook for snacks for later. First World Problems right? Anyway, I buy baby carrots in bulk at my local Costco because they last a long time in the fridge and I use them in lots of recipes. The regular price for these is $5.79 but it has 13 1/2 cups of carrots! That makes each serving (1/2 cup) $0.21. So my 2 cups of baby carrots was $0.84.
Celery: In this recipe, I use celery more as a flavor addition than a “I love to eat the celery as a part of the meal”. But if you like celery, then add some more! 🙂 I use 4 stalksand chop them into 1/2 – 1 inch pieces. Sometimes stores will offer a bunch of celery for $1.50 which is a decent price. At that price you are looking at a cost of $0.40 for this meal. I, however, bought my celery in bulk at Costco for $3.79 for 40 stalks which made the celery for this meal only $0.38. PLUS the leftovers from this meal will help make my next batch of soup that much more yummy!! 🙂
Potatoes: On this particular day, I used brown russet potatoes. I have used red (new) potatoes in the past and been just as pleased with the taste. I ONLY buy russet or new potatoes by the 5 or 10 pound bag. These potatoes came from a 5 pound bag that cost $3.00 at Kroger. That is not a great price. In the potato off season (winter – spring), you can get 5 pound bags of SMALL russet potatoes for $2-2.50. Check your grocery ads for the current prices! When I’m making this recipe, I always put the celery and carrots in first and then “supplement” with the potatoes. This way, I make room for the super healthy veggies and less room for the starch. With that being said, the number of potatoes will vary a bit from time to time. Usually, I use 6-8 red potatoes or small russet potatoes quartered or2-3 large russet potatoes cut into sixths. So the cost for 3 large russet potatoes was $1.35. If you were to buy these on sale in the $2 range, 3 large potatoes would only be $0.90! That’s a 45¢ savings!
Onion: I like cooking with onion because I do think it adds a lot of flavor; however I don’t like actually eating the onion. Therefore I usually use half the amount of onion that is called for in recipes. This recipe should probably have a whole onion but I use a half an onion. Do whatever suits your family. 1/2 an onion cost me $0.27.
Lemon: These are tricky little boogers. They rarely go on sale. And when they do, they are not advertised in the circulars. This means it is hard to plan EXACTLY what the cost will be until you arrive at the grocery store. At Kroger I can normally find a lemon NOT ON SALE for $0.79 but I have purchased them for $0.50 at Aldi before. The lemon I used this time was unfortunately $0.79 so I’ll use that for my calculations. Let me know where YOU find lemons for a good price!
Minced Garlic: I use already minced garlic from a jar. It’s also hard to find this on sale so I got my jar for $3 but I’ve seen them for $2.50 before. In a 4.5 oz jar, there are 32 servings. Each serving is 1/2 tsp. I used 2 tsp so my cost is $0.36.
Bay Leaf: If you remember, I don’t normally incorporate prices of spices in these posts but bay leaves can be figured by the leaf. This recipe uses 1 bay leaf which was $0.13.
Here are the spices I typically use…
The total cost for this recipe is $9.02! Wait a minute (you’re thinking)! This is yet another post where the total is MORE than $5 and this is the Five Dollar Dinner Blog.
Let’s break it down intoactual meals. The chicken and veggies normally makes about 6-7 servings. Divide the total cost by 7 servings and that gives you $1.29 per serving. My family (2 adults and 2 toddlers) will eat 3 servings per meal. The cost is $3.87 for meal 1, $3.87 for meal 2, and $1.28 for a leftover lunch for the hubster!
Woot wooooot! Another successful Five Dollar Dinner!
