If you’re a Sam’s Club member you probably know they have the rotisserie chickens available for members as a gimmick to get you in the door. My understanding is that they sell them at a loss, but it baits people to come in and buy other things. Come for a massive juicy rotisserie chicken, then impulse shop a bunch of other stuff. The pizza and hot dogs at the snack bar work on the same premise. What I’m observing in recent times however has been that elderly people in my local club are coming in, putting half a dozen or more chickens in their cart, and checking out with nothing else. So instead of this gimmick thing where you buy (a) chicken, they’re cheating the system and getting a whole lot of cheap chicken. The cost for several pounds stays low for them, and when they get home the energy it would take to bake a chicken isn’t a factor either since they have pre-cooked meat. As someone who used to be way more thrifty and coupon, I’m thinking that’s brilliant, maybe it helps someone’s limited retirement budget. Downside, this rapidly depletes the chickens for the rest of us.
So I see this continuing at my local Sam’s Club for about a year, post pandemic, as inflation is really taking hold. Then finally one day I’m in the store around 11am, and I’m looking for a single rotisserie chicken like a normal shopper to go with the rest of my groceries. So I cruise over to area where they bake them, and they’re not out yet, but I can see several dozen of them are in the process of cooking, looking nowhere near done. At this same moment I notice there are about 20 elderly people here, with completely empty carts, hovering, socializing, and willing to wait around to loot these things the moment they come out. So now the chicken experience is that it isn’t isolated incidents of people filling carts with the chickens, it is suddenly a mob and they’re going to competitively try to take every chicken the moment they hit the shelf. Not cool! But I see why they do it, if the price of chicken per pound is way down buying the at a loss to Sam’s Club chicken. I left that day without one because I wasn’t waiting around for an hour to fight into a mob of elderly people aggressively and proactively trying to snack all the chickens.
The next time I went back following that experience, the mob wasn’t there. Maybe it is the time of day, maybe they know exactly when the chickens are put out, but whatever the case I finally got one…a reasonable ONE chicken. I get it. I also see where it ruins it for the rest of us. That story aside, I’ve been on a new dietary routine and trying to keep to something along the lines of the Mediterranean Diet. Rotisserie chickens are on that list, in my case so long as I discard all the fatty skin and stick to just the meat. It takes me about two days to devour all the white meat, and I’m usually left with the dark meat from the thighs and wings to contend with. Revisiting the thriftiness factor on the Sam’s Club Rotisserie Chickens I think it is a shame to waste much of these. So I have suggestions if you’re trying to figure out what to do with the bits.
- ROTISSERIE CHICKEN SOUP – Find a medium sized pot, half fill it with water and bring to a boil. Toss in a few tablespoons of wild rice so it starts cooking. Take any scrap vegetables you have in your house, dice or shred them up and add a few handfuls to the pot. Pluck the extra meat from the chicken and shred it into bite sized pieces. Throw it all in the pot, add some salt, pepper and any seasonings you want. I have rosemary and thyme in my garden so they go in. The chicken itself is going to bring some flavor too thanks to everything that’s already been done to it. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes, and you have a handy chicken soup that’s Mediterranean Diet friendly. Note that if you want more flavor and you’re not freaked out by having extra fat, you can toss some of the skin from the chicken in their too, or at a great amount of effort boil the chicken skin and bones in the pot first, strain anything that’s not liquid out, then cook the rice and continue on so you’ll have a basic chicken stock. But the basics, are just that, basic. Throw elements in a pot, let it simmer, enjoy.
- ASIAN ROTISSERIE CHICKEN SALAD – My Sam’s Club almost always has those bagged Asian Salad chop kits. Toss the leftover chicken scraps on those. Instant more exciting salad all with Sam’s products.
- ROTISSERIE CHICKEN BURRITO BOWL – Heat up your leftover rotisserie chicken meat, toss it in a bowl next to some pinto or black beans, some pico or salsa, guacamole, lettuce, and if you have cilantro, black olives, pickled jalapenos, or corn around toss them in their too. Instant burrito bowl! Outside of the cilantro, I think most of that is available in bulk also at Sam’s, which is why I’m leaving these little thoughts here.
