Rotisserie Chicken Meal Plan

This Rotisserie Chicken Meal Plan makes meal prep dinners for two a breeze. Easily turn one store-bought rotisserie chicken into three separate two-person dinners. It’s a budget-friendly and delicious way to deliver cheap healthy meals all week!

The entire point of meal prep is to make life a little easier. Yet when you look at some meal plans for the week, you feel overwhelmed and insecure. I promise this Rotisserie Chicken Meal Plan is nothing like that! During the week you will enjoy cheesy Chicken Philly Sandwiches, creamy Chicken Corn Chowder, and Asian-inspired Mustard Ginger Chicken Cabbage Wraps. Assembled with minimal effort for max flavor with just one store-bought rotisserie chicken!

Balance Convenience with Cost!

Before we dive into recipe deets, let’s chat about ingredients! First up is the star of our show – a rotisserie chicken. Believe it or not, I tried like crazy to get a bird home while it looked really good and fresh. I even stalked my neighborhood deli to grab this one as soon as it came off the rotisserie. The poor bird still looked awkward once we got home. Luckily ugly food tastes good! In addition to rotisserie chicken, these recipes include fresh and frozen produce. While fresh is usually best, ingredients like frozen corn are a staple for recipes like my Warm Southwest Farro Salad.

I’m also in love with the convenience and price point of shredded carrots. There is no shame in using freshly prepared items – diced onions, shredded carrots, chopped broccoli, etc – from the produce section. Jarred aromatics like minced garlic and ginger paste are handy to have on hand too. Watch out for the costs involved though, it adds up fast. To keep a balance between my budget and my time, I typically pick one fresh convenience item to include in my meal prep routine each week. This Rotisserie Chicken Meal Plan includes the following key convenience items:

• Rotisserie chicken
• Pre-shredded carrots – fresh convenience splurge
• Frozen corn
• Frozen mirepoix – onions, carrots, celery
• Minced garlic in a jar
• Ginger paste in a tube

Meal Plan vs Meal Prep

We know a weekend meal prep routine cuts down on the amount of time you spend in the kitchen later in the week. So what is the point of a meal plan? Most of the time when we say meal prep, what we probably mean is meal plan. A plan to create a weekly menu that fits your schedule, then shop for the necessary ingredients. Meal prep is the last step of the overall process, which is to physically prepare – chop, dice, mix, etc. – recipe ingredients ahead of time. To reduce kitchen resources, I frequently package recipe ingredients together.

Meal Prep Tasks (in order):

• Separate rotisserie chicken, remove meat from bones.
• Create slow cooker stock with chicken carcass.
• Slice onions and peppers.
• Shred cabbage for coleslaw.
• Make mustard ginger vinaigrette.
• Package and store recipe ingredients together.

Part of creating this 3-in-1 Rotisserie Chicken Meal Plan was determining the order of meals during the week. For example, some recipes like the pickled coleslaw for my cabbage wraps need a few days in the refrigerator. You want those flavors to blend together. On the other hand, you don’t want the onions, peppers, and Swiss cheese for the chicken sandwiches hanging out together too long. Otherwise the onion taste can get overpowering!

Recipes + Ideas + Suggestions:

One key to keeping my meal plans simple is to include at least one ‘recipe’ that isn’t really a recipe. It’s more like a suggestion, i.e. tacos, a salad, or fried rice. Something easy that will use up random items in the refrigerator. Take these Chicken Philly Sandwiches for example. There isn’t anything special or complicated about the ingredients. To make them, you need a few sandwich or hoagie rolls, butter, sliced onions and peppers, one breast from the cooked chicken, and two-four slices of melty cheese.

How to make Chicken Philly Sandwiches:

• Butter and toast two sandwich rolls, set aside.
• Grill onions and peppers in a large buttered skillet over medium-high heat.
• Roughly chop cooked chicken breast, add to skillet. Toss with vegetables. Top with cheese slices.
• Cover skillet, cook 3-4 minutes until cheese melts.
• Divide meat between buns. Dress with condiments like spicy mustard, mayo, or thousand island dressing.

Serve with an easy side like my Spicy Oven Baked Taco Fries for a quick weeknight meal!

Homemade Stock for Soups:

One ingredient that makes this dump-and-go slow cooker Creamy Chicken Corn Chowder so tasty is homemade chicken stock. I use the bones from the chicken, along with the vegetable odds and ends left from our meal prep, to make a flavorful both in the slow cooker. To keep the broth from overpowering your chowder, skip strongly flavored vegetables like cabbage. Stick with the other produce like onions, peppers, carrots, scallions, parsley, garlic, and ginger.

To make the broth, place chicken bones and produce pieces in slow cooker. Cover with water, ideally at least eight cups. Cook on high 3-4 hours or on low 6-8 hours. Strain solids from broth and discard. Store broth in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Soup recipes can be hard to scale down when you are cooking for two and do not want leftovers. Since we are working with intentionally limited resources, i.e. our rotisserie chicken, this Creamy Chicken Corn Chowder automatically has fewer portions. To make this easy two-person chowder recipe, add the following list of ingredients to a slow cooker:

• 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped cooked chicken
• 1 large russet potato – skin on, diced in 1/4 inch pieces
• 1 cup frozen mirepoix
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1 large bay leaf
• 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
•  5 cups chicken broth

Cook soup 6-8 hours on low heat or 3-4 hours on high. Remove bay leaf and stir in 1-2 cups milk during last 30 minutes of cooking. Adjust amount of milk depending on desired thickness. Salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with fresh parsley.

Multi-Purpose Recipe Components:

A key aspect to many of my posts is using vital ingredients efficiently. Multi-purposing recipe components like the marinade/vinaigrette in this Mediterranean Salmon White Bean Salad saves you time and money when meal prepping. For example, my initial recipe idea was to make chicken lettuce wraps topped with a dressed-up packaged coleslaw mix. But I had already picked shredded carrots as my fresh convenience splurge. Switching from lettuce to cabbage means the cabbage does double duty as both a serving vessel and coleslaw in this Ginger Mustard Chicken Cabbage Wraps recipe.

The ginger mustard dressing I used to make this tangy coleslaw can also be used as a marinade. You could also make a creamy coleslaw by adding a dollop of sour cream or Greek yogurt to the mix. Either way, save these Ginger Mustard Chicken Cabbage Wraps for later in the week so the coleslaw flavors have a chance to meld together! To assemble your wraps simply toss two cups cooked diced chicken with coleslaw. Serve in cabbage cups. Garnish with more dressing and green onions if desired.

We hope you enjoy this 3-in-1 Rotisserie Chicken Meal Plan from SoFabFood Home Chef, Loriann from Thyme for Cocktails. If you love these versatile meal prep ideas, be sure to check out our other Meal Prep Plans. For daily recipe inspiration, subscribe to our newsletter, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Pinterest. Enjoy!