Think you can't afford to eat locally-raised, pastured chicken? We'll show you exactly how to get the biggest bang for your buck!

Whole chickens are, hands down, THE most budget-friendly way to eat high-quality protein. Our whole chickens are priced by the pound, so can vary quite a bit, but let's say our average packaged whole chicken weighs a bit over 4 lbs and costs $20.

And let's also say this whole chicken yields 2 1/4 lbs of boneless meat once cooked. At 1/4 lb servings, this means each boneless serving of meat costs only $2.22! But there's another way to stretch your dollars to cut the per-serving cost in half. Keep reading to find out!

Step One:

Roast the whole chicken at 400 F for 1 1/2 hours and until the juices run clear (make sure your meat thermometer reads 165 degrees, and that when you test the legs you can easily move them—this tells you the muscle fibers have broken down enough so that it will be tender!). We like to drizzle oil and add plenty of salt and pepper to the outside, or rub a mixture of butter, garlic, and herbs under the skin.

Meal ideas:

Make this healthy Curry Chicken Salad! It's our favorite chicken salad EVER, and once the chicken is roasted, it comes together in minutes.

This Southwest Salad with Chicken is delicious, veggie-rich, and full of flavor!

And these Chicken and Spinach Enchiladas are easy and will feed a crowd!

Other ways we love to use roasted chicken: in a bowl with some roasted veggies and topped with our favorite sauces (tahini dressing is always a fave), sprinkled on homemade barbecue or buffalo sauce pizza, and in wraps with lots of veggies.

Step Two:

Remember our last blog post about the perfect chicken stock?

Take your chicken carcass and cover it with water, bring it to a boil, and let it go for at least 6 hours. Use the broth to flavor rice, sauces, drink it, or get the most out of your chicken by turning it into soup! All those meat scraps you didn't get off the first time around will become the perfect filling for your soup, and you can throw in any extra you didn't use up already.

Our favorite soup? It's a tough call since any soup is amazing with homemade stock, but classic chicken soup is always a winner! Look out for a blog post sometime soon with the recipe for it (we think ours is the BEST ever)!

Visit our online shop HERE to order a whole chicken!