Shoutout to the cashier at Aldi who changed my meal planning

Last Tuesday I was buying my usual cheap stuff at Aldi in Portland and the cashier, a guy named Mike, looked at my cart of rice, beans, and frozen veggies. He said "you know you can stretch a whole chicken into five meals if you roast it right." That little tip got me to actually meal prep for the week and my grocery bill dropped from $60 to $40. Has anyone else gotten a useful cooking hack from a random store employee?

2 comments

2 Comments

quinnperry6d ago

A whole chicken for one person? That's a week of eating the same thing every day unless you've got a family to feed. I get that Aldi prices are hard to beat but dropping from $60 to $40 sounds like you were eating like a student before and now you're still eating like a student with slightly less variety. Rice and beans plus chicken for five days straight isn't meal prep, it's a punishment. Maybe that cashier was just trying to upsell you on a chicken.

jackson.max6d ago

Huh, @quinnperry you're not wrong about the repetition, but I actually do it with a twist. Carcass goes in a pot with veggie scraps for stock, which then becomes soup with the leftover meat on day three or four. If you shred the rest and freeze it in portions, you can stretch it into tacos or stir fries for like two weeks without eating the same thing five days running. Maybe that's just my own little meal prep hack nobody talks about.