End of year holidays are upon us and this can be really hard for the restricted sodium diet person. Follow this stuffed chicken recipe and you can have a huge meal, will hardly miss the reduced salt, and will still meet all your heart health diet needs. Stuff yourself with a 24 oz meal with only 780 Calories and as little as 280 mg of sodium. (Since additional biscuits are created in recipe, you can add one biscuit to each meal for added 55 Calories and 20 mg sodium per biscuit. Result is 28 oz meal, 835 Calories, 300 mg sodium. Note that this would make a 1.75 pound dinner meal portion.)
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| Complete Chicken Dinner cooked in 1 hour in pressure cooker 835 Calories, 300mg Sodium |
You need to start with the right chicken
Note: If you use a pressure cooker as discussed in this recipe, you will need one with an 8 qt or larger capacity due to size of chicken and ingredients.
I have found that whole chicken varies widely in sodium content. Most chicken that you purchase are actually processed roasting chickens. Roasting chickens are processed with additives that are mixed with a salt brine, which are then injected. The result is a sodium content between 300-600 mg sodium minimum per 4 oz serving. Even cut chicken parts labeled as being for frying, is often from a processed roasting chicken. If it is purchased cooked, the usual processing will add even more salt, raising the per serving sodium content to levels ranging between 600-1800 mg per serving. (Why do they do this injection? The injection performed allows the chicken to be more moist after cooking (baking or frying), and adds water to the weight of the sale. Pressure cooking avoids the loss of water during cooking and keeps the chicken moist.)
On the other hand, a whole minimally processed fryer chicken (Sanderson Farms brand is one I use), has a sodium content of 60-80 mg per 4 oz serving. That is about five times less than a whole roasting chicken. Unfortunately, turkey has no similar low sodium option as they are all injected as discussed, but you are unlikely to miss that turkey with this recipe. (The 5 pounds of fryer chicken is actually more real chicken meat than a roasting chicken, as part of the roasting chicken weight is the injected flavor and brine process.)
This recipe makes several products and portions which can be used in other meals, if desired. I always recommend multitasking. That is, while bread is baking, you prepare other parts, and so on. That significantly reduces the total time of preparation. It is very important to use a timer as it is easy to under or over cook if you do not monitor time.
Make stuffing bread
Most breads have 300 mg sodium per serving (2 slices of bread for example). Flour has no sodium. Thus you can make your own bread, or biscuits, with absolutely no unnecessary salt added. I make seasoned biscuits using 1 cup flour, 1 tbsp baking soda, one egg and about 8 oz milk- plus seasonings. The lite seasoning I add to bread dough greatly reduces even noticing the loss of salt in bread. (Do not use self rising flour as it includes salt and you will not reduce sodium at all.)
This recipe will stuff two small chickens, or one medium to large turkey. I usually make a full portion, stuff a five pound chicken, and freeze the remaining parts I do not use for use in the next chicken stuffing, or make another giblet stuffing mix dish using chicken parts included with the fryer chicken.
Make low sodium biscuits. In baking dish, cover baking surfaces with small amount of vegetable shortening (Crisco etc). Set aside.
In large mixing bowl, place flour, shake baking powder over it., and add seasoning to taste. I like to add some pepper, garlic, and onion powder to the top of dry ingredients. Mix dry ingredients with large spoon. Create a depression in the center of dry mix to hold wet ingredients. Now add one egg and 8 oz milk to the center of mix depression. Stir with a large spoon. If too wet, add flour and mix again. If too dry, add small amount of milk and mix again. I keep kneading the dough and adding small amounts of flour until it starts to separate. Using spoon, place the dough in baking dish. Bake 30 minutes at 400 degrees or until top is brown.
Ingredients for the low sodium biscuits
| mg | Calories | qty | unit | ingredient | pct vol |
| 0 | 400 | 1 | cup | flour | 79% |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | tbsp | baking powder | 0% |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | tbsp | baking soda | 0% |
| 70 | 70 | 2 | tbsp or one egg | egg | 1% |
| 130 | 80 | 1 | cup | fat free milk | 20% |
| Label compare ingredients: flour, milk, egg, baking soda Makes about 10 servings biscuits before modification to make dressing below. 550 Calories, 200 mg sodium total, thus the per serving is 55 Calories and 20 mg sodium per small to medium biscuit. This compares to 55 Calories and over 150 mg sodium for slice of store purchased or other similar bread products. | |||||
When cooking is completed, allow biscuits to cool. While bread is cooling, cut into desired size, 2 large or 5 small onions, mince 4 oz can of mushrooms (can reduce sodium 400 mg if use fresh mushrooms), and add seasonings. I usually add minced garlic, garlic powder, pepper, parsley, sage, rosemary, ginger, and small amount of curry. Stir mixture in large mixing bowl.
Remove the crust layer only of biscuits (mainly the bottom and top layer). Place remainder into oven and brown surfaces again (5-10 minutes). You can use these remaining browned biscuits for other recipes or just enjoy it as bread.
Crumble the exterior crusts into the large mixing bowl. Add small amount of milk (just enough to mix and wet surfaces) and mix. Do not add another egg.
Place whole chicken on neck, open cavity, and stuff as much as possible of the stuffing mix into cavity as possible. About half of the available amount May be placed into a single 5 pound chicken. If desired, you can freeze the remainder for another chicken stuffing later. If fresh mushrooms are used, no sodium is added. Each 4 oz stuffing serving will be about 120 Calories and 30 mg sodium. If you used canned mushrooms, the stuffing Calories are 130 and the sodium is about 120 mg per 4 oz serving.Pressure cook stuffed chicken and veges
Pressure cooking costs up to 60% less than cooking in an oven. For this reason, I pressure cook most meals as a large meal, then portion results for low Calorie and sodium meals later. You must use a 8 qt or larger pressure cooker for a 5 pound whole chicken.
Place scorch separator into pressure cooker so that bottom ingredients will not scorch. Place stuffed chicken into the pressure vessel and arrange such that it will be more than one or more inches below pressure top. It will settle further into pot while cooking. Add two (2) cups of pure water. I usually peel 5-6 whole medium potatoes and arrange them around chicken (110 Calories, 0 mg sodium per 4 oz medium potato). I place any desired seasonings on top of chicken (garlic, or any added others). Then I arrange one 16 oz package of frozen carrots (35 Calories, 60 mg sodium per 3 oz serving).
Close pressure cooker. Cook at high heat bringing to pressure (takes up to 90 minutes with a full pressure cooker using a 900 Watt electric burner to attain, 15 minutes natural gas). Reduce heat as needed to hold pressure for 60-80 minutes. When time is completed, allow the pressure to reduce naturally until pressure is fully removed (about 30-60 minutes). The meal should be fully cooked now and will be very tender. Pressure cookers lose very little liquid so the results will be moist and a very flavorful broth will be created.
Broth can be used to make soup or seasoned rice: The juice can be used to flavor soups such as an instant rice soup as follows. Refrigerate liquid until use. When ready for soup, take liquid and determine volume using measuring measuring cup. Then place in pan and bring to boil. Put 2/3rds of volume of instant rice into measuring cup. Place boiling chicken broth over rice and cover with plastic. Allow to stand 2 minutes. Serve as soup. If flavored rice is desire, use equal amount of rice and broth. Serve. If you do this at time of first opening of pressure cooker, you will not need to reheat the broth.
This pressure cooked chicken recipe creates about 15 cooked 4 oz chicken servings, and 5-6 each of potato and carrot servings. If broth is used, it will also create two one cup soups or flavored rice with sodium content below 100 mg per serving (as compared to store brands which will have 800 mg or more sodium per serving).Sodium content comparison
This recipe makes a good meal for up to five people with left over servings of chicken and dressing, plus biscuits. If you examine a roasting or prepackaged (store) product, you will find that most of them have a much higher sodium content.
| Comparisons and options table | ||||
| 4 oz cooked | mg | Calories | mg reduced | Kcal reduced |
| Roasting baked chicken | 400 (800 store) | 240 | 0 | 0 |
| this recipe | 60 | 240 | 85% (92% store) | 0% |
| Stuffing | ||||
| Store recipe* | 800 | 160 | 0 | 0 |
| this recipe | 60 | 120 | 92% | 25% |
| add canned mushrooms | 120 | 130 | 85% | 19% |
| Other elements | ||||
| potato | 10 | 110 | NA | NA |
| The salt from chicken and other ingredients add some sodium to the potato | ||||
| carrots | 35 | 60 | NA | NA |
| Frozen carrots have salt added to them in processing (10-60 mg sodium per serving) | ||||
| fresh carrot option | 35 | 0 | 100% | 0% |
| *Depends on brand, ranges observed are 800 to 1300 mg per serving All options are baseline to the main recipe. If you want to mix options, you will need to calculate the differences and add the results to meet your preferred option. If you want salt added, suggest you use the low sodium seasoned salt "low salt salt" recipe. Use of regular salt defeats much of the purpose behind the effort. | ||||
Unused portions can be frozen or chilled for later use.Final issues
A five pound chicken will yield 13-15 USDA meal portions of four oz chicken each. Even a big eater will get usually 6-8 meals from it. For example, six to eight meal portions consisting of 8 oz chicken, one potato, portion of carrots, dressing, and half cup of rice or soup dish (total is about a 24 oz sized dinner). This large portion per meal stats are Calories 780 (240*2, 110, 35, 55, 100 respectively) and 400-280 mg sodium (60*2, 0, 60 or 0, 120 or 60, 0 respectively). There is enough biscuits left over to add one biscuit per meal if desired to 835 Calories, 300 mg sodium and 1.75 pounds of a meal. That is a really big meal, and enough to claim your Thanksgiving meal binge complete, all without blowing the Calories and sodium for the day completely off the map. Note: The actual sodium of chicken is less due to cooking, but chicken sodium is added to veges and rice when added to them in cooking. Thus meal totals should be as shown. Variations are if fresh carrots and mushrooms are used. Compares to about 2000 mg sodium for similar holiday dinner type meal, that is much less portions and variety, and has nearly 80-87% reduction in sodium as compared to it.
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