Whole Chicken (1.6kg). Enjoy Delicious Family Roast Chicken Dinners 🐓

Information on Whole Chicken.

The Whole Chicken has no added water from Grade A birds for a better flavour, giving you more meat for your money. Our Chickens are a great size (1.5-1.7Kg+) for family roasts or for making shredded chicken for sandwiches etc. This oven-ready Whole Chicken only needs simple seasoning with a few herbs for excellent results.

The breasts are a good-size & easy to carve, giving delicious slices of moist chicken. The legs have excellent meat content, great for eating by hand & crunching through the lovely crispy skin. We also produce ready made Spatchcock Chickens, these are perfect for grilling on the Barbecue. These have the spine bone removed & lay “butterflied” across the grill.

What is a Whole Chicken?

The Whole Chicken is the 2 Legs & 2 Breasts with wings attached, all on the bone. The natural Chickens have no added water, are completely cleaned inside, with no feathers.

How do we prepare Whole Chickens?

After slaughter, the Whole Chickens are plucked & fully cleaned out (all giblets are removed), they are chilled down to 1-2°c in the thickest part (ie;the breast). Once chilled, the feet are removed & the whole birds are quality checked for any damage or bruising. The Chickens are then weight graded before moving into the cutting & packing rooms, the Chickens are finally prepared by expert butchers. Any excess skin or feathers are then removed, producing a ready made Whole Chicken.

How our Whole Chickens packed?

We pack our Whole Chickens (singularly) in Clear Recyclable pouches straight after preparation, making them as fresh as possible. The chickens are vacuum sealed reducing the amount of natural airborne bacteria in the packaging. Once the Chickens are packed, the packs are placed in recycled cardboard boxes & palletised. The pallets of Whole Chickens are “Blast Frozen” to -18°c over a few hours. Fresh frozen meats are as tasty as fresh cut ones when prepared correctly.

The process from farm to fork is all done under the strictest rules & clean practises, with all premises being BRCGS / IFS approved. There are on site health officials monitoring the slaughter, cutting & packing stages ensuring safe products are made. All the air is chilled & filtered, all the staff wear clean fully protective clothing, with a deep clean after every day. 

The process from farm to finished product is a very humane & efficient.

The Recycled Pouches protect your Whole Chickens from other flavours & contamination in your fridge at home. The pouches prevent Freezer Burn, damage during delivery to your door & drying out when bringing them up to temperature before cooking.

The clear recyclable pouches are now stronger & thinner than before, this is to reduce our annual plastic use so we can “Reduce our Carbon Footprint”. Less packaging reduces the amount needed per portion & also reduces the energy needed to make finished meats.

To further help us towards our goal for a Greener Future, we ask that all our wholesale & online customers recycle responsibly.

Are Whole Chickens good value for money?

The Chickens have large breasts, good thick legs & no added water, giving you “More Meat For Your Money”.

The Chickens have a generous amount of meat on the bone. When making Chicken recipes at home from our whole birds, you can give more meat per portion. As we don’t add water to the Chicken the meat content per portion is higher.

Please see the link as to Why we don’t add water to our chicken,it will surprise you to see why some places offer chicken at seemingly very cheap prices.

The generous 1.6Kg Whole Chickens are fully prepared with little waste. The bones can be used for making stock, the skin is awesome when slightly crispy, with plenty of meat on the bones. The price per portion is lower with our Chickens because we produce faster & in bigger volumes. We have the benefit of bulk buying & lower labour / energy costs per bird. These savings are passed on to our customers to give better value for money when shopping online for Whole Chickens.

Are Whole Chickens nutritious?

Natural Chicken is one of the healthiest meats you can buy. The whole Chicken has the lean Breast fillet meat combined with the slightly fattier Leg meat for a good balance of lean & tasty meat. Chicken meat is low in cholesterol & fat, recommended in many diets such as weight loss calorie controlled diets, Slimming World recipes & diets, muscle building diets. Cooking with natural Chicken at home helps you to make better tasting healthier meals for all the family.

Using only Grade A Quality Chicken provides a great source of natural Vitamins, Minerals & is full of Protein. Eating Chicken as part of a balanced diet helps promote maintaining good muscles & metabolism.

Provenance of our Chicken

Sourcing all our chicken locally to the production facilities enables us to have access to good quality A Grade chicken from sustainable sources. Having built up relationships with local chicken farmers, the chickens supplied very consistent in size & quality. The Dutch & Polish locally sourced Chicken is some of the best quality in the world

The shorter distances from the farms to production reduces stress levels for the birds promoting Happy Chickens. Happier Chickens means better quality meat.

All the local farms that supply production meet the highest European standards as quality & safety are our main priorities when buying our chicken. The chickens are checked & monitored 24 hours a day in temperature-controlled environments. The Chicken Sheds are very large & well ventilated so that the Chickens have room to move about. With a controlled diet the chickens grow to healthy sized birds that produce a good yield.

Please see Sherwood Provenance page for more information.

How to cook Whole Chickens.

Most people would Roast Whole Chickens because they are used for the weekend family dinner. There are many ways to cook your Chicken for different styles of recipe. Chicken can be shredded for using the pulled meat for sandwiches or in wraps, this can be used in pasta recipes combined with other meats. Roasted & served as breasts, legs & wings, or the meat can be sliced with the Drumsticks cut from the thighs. Simply spit roasted on the Barbecue for that amazing Smokey flavour.

There are so many ways to cook your Chicken we have a few guidelines for times & temperatures listed here, & some interesting videos to help you make your favourite Chicken dinners at home.

Cooking times for Whole Chickens;

• Oven at 210°c 15-20 minutes, 175°c for 60-70 minutes (covered & juices basted over the breast several times) uncover for 10 minutes for crispy skin at the end.
• Barbecue Indirect Heat Smoked for 15 minutes, finish on semi direct heat until skin is crispy 40-60 minutes 

Please note that for safe cooking; make sure the chicken is cooked all the way through & the juices run clear. You need to have a minimum temperature of 74°c in the middle of the breast.

Here are a few ideas & recipes on how to cook Whole Chickens;

• 24 Ways on How to cook your Whole Chicken
• Oven Roasting a Chicken made easy
• How to cook your Chicken in the Air Fryer
• Caribbean Style Rotisserie Chicken
• Crock Pot BBQ Flavoured Chicken
• How to make Beer Can Chicken

It is important to rest your Chicken once cooked; this allows the meat to relax so the fibres can absorb the natural juices back into the meat. This creates more flavoursome juicy meat as the Chicken finishes cooking. Rest your Chicken on a wooden board under a tea towel to keep the heat inside the meat.

Click the link Tips for making juicy Whole Chicken.

Sharing your Whole Chicken on Social Media.

A Whole Chicken is one of those meats made for sharing, & everyone has their preferred part (breasts, legs or wings). Great food should be shared, sitting around the table with a few drinks & good company. Sharing food at home, or in a restaurant has been a long tradition, now with the explosion of Social Media, sharing food online is set to be the new long term tradition.

Sharing the results of your cooks on Social Media is great, because we love to share them with our followers, giving them inspiration to try new cooking methods or recipes. Why not join us over on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter, tagging us in your pictures, reels, recipes, videos, stories & ideas.

When we are tagged in posts using our hashtags, it makes it much easier to find them through our notifications. Sharing your home cooks are a great way of building an online community for people to enjoy better, healthier food & make delicious savings. Take pleasure in cooking with your Roasted Whole Chicken at home, & try some of the recipes in the next tab with these.

Many people are looking online on how to cook Whole Chicken at home. Your posts on Social Media will help them to learn different recipes or Pro Tips when cooking. In addition to our Facebook Page, we have an interactive Facebook Group for sharing your cooks & ideas. The group is called Sherwood Home Cooking & Barbecue, see delicious recipes, hints & tips from some of our online customers.

Sherwood Foods Hashtags:

#ourbrandisapromise #moremeatfym #wholechicken #chicken