You can incorporate local chicken as a protein in an entree recipe like tacos, burritos, pot pie, casserole, and roast it in the oven as a stand-alone entree on the tray or use a boneless thigh in a sandwich on a bun or wrap. Incorporate local chicken into soups, pasta dishes, rice and bean dishes, on a tostada, in an egg-based dish like a quiche or frittata. Why not make it a chicken slider day?
If you are planning a taste test try making a mini, one-bite slider with your student’s favorite topping by portioning a full boneless thigh and bun into wedges. Share a feedback form for older students or provide a voting system for younger students to give your eaters a voice, including them in the menu process.
The Illinois Taste Test Toolkit provides best practices and creative ideas for Illinois grown foods. You can access the toolkit for download on all four of the Registered Site pages. Check out the toolkit on the Schools and School District page here.
Included in this toolkit are featured curriculum connections for beef, along with recipes for food service, early childcare and recipes for home to connect parents to your local food education and activities.
Featured Food Facts
Agricultural Facts:
- Over 9 billion chickens are raised for food annually in the US.
- Chickens are omnivores. They eat seeds and insects.
- Chickens have a sleep phase that humans don’t experience called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, where one half of the brain is asleep and the other is awake.
- Chicken farms are divided into three types: Broiler Farms. Broiler farms specialize in raising chickens for meat. Layer Farms. Layer farms primarily concentrate on egg production. Free-Range Farms. Free-range farming allows poultry to roam outdoors, encouraging natural behavior.
- A female chicken is known as a hen when it is an adult, and it is known as a pullet as a female juvenile. An adult male is known as a rooster, while a juvenile male is called a cockerel.
Nutrition and Food Facts:
- Chicken is rich in a variety of important nutrients, including protein, niacin, selenium, and phosphorus.
- Chicken has exceptional nutritional value and is an excellent source of high-quality, complete protein. Chicken is lower in saturated fat than most other meats and provides many other essential nutrients required for optimal health.
Literature and Lore:
- The oldest chicken ever documented lived to the age of 23 years and 152 days, according to Guinness World Records. That was a Red Quill Muffed American Game hen named Muffy who died in 2012.
- Chickens are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs! Scientific evidence has proven the shared common ancestry between chickens and the Tyrannosaurus rex.
- The Greeks believed that even lions were afraid of chickens. Several of Aesop’s fables reference this belief.
- A landmark 2020 nature study that fully sequenced 863 chickens across the world suggests that all domestic chickens originate from a single domestication event of red junglefowl whose present-day distribution is predominantly in southwestern China, northern Thailand and Myanmar.
- What came first? The chicken or the egg? A causality dilemma that is more commonly known as the chicken or the egg paradox. It characterizes situations in which it is challenging to determine between the cause of an event and the effect. Even the Greek-Roman philosopher Plutarch couldn’t exactly come up with a solution.
Spread the word and build partnerships
Don’t be a solo act. Invite your community to the table!
Promote in-house:
- Announcements
- Newsletters
- Website
- Social media
- Events (health fairs, open houses, garden working events, back to school, holiday activities, parents night, sporting events)
- Meetings (PTO, wellness committee, board of directors, staff professional learning days)
- Food tastings during events
Promote in your community:
- Report on activities and share pictures with news sources
- Share with community partners for their websites, social media and newsletters
- Post fliers at public places (libraries, health centers, non-profit hospitals, garden groups, local farm hubs, farmers markets, health agencies)
- Ask students to create and publicize local food stories – include photos or create videos
Invite others onsite to get involved:
- Build impact by engaging culinary arts, Future Farmers of America, wellness, botany, ecocentric and garden programs
- Create relationships and engage non-profit hospitals, garden groups, local farm hubs, farmers markets, health agencies and advocates
- Host a mini farmers market at your site as an outside seasonal market or an inside winter market to provide backpack foods or raise awareness of local foods in your area
- Find support in local culinary leaders, educators, and businesses
Menu Icons
Recipes
We have many recipes for you to look through in our Recipe Index. Here you can see take-home recipes for use in the community as well as more choices for your cafeteria. We have hot and cold recipes for most foods. Be sure to use the provided icons on your menu!
Featured Food Service Recipe #1: Spinach and Chicken Quesadillas
Featured Food Service Recipe #2: Cheesy Chicken and Zucchini Pasta
Featured CACFP Recipe: Coming soon!
Featured Home Recipe: Coming soon! Baked Chicken and Spinach Flautas