Taste Test: Next-day rotisserie chicken

A bird fresh from the market’s rotisserie oven often goes straight to the dinner table. But because consumers tend to make secondary meals using leftover rotisserie chicken, the Food section geared its taste test in that direction.

A panel of seven newsroom staffers tasted the white meat from rotisserie chickens purchased at six Washington area grocery stores, stripped of skin and cut into chunks, served at a cool room temperature. The birds were purchased a day before, or early on the day we tasted them, refrigerated then brought to a cool room temperature. We assigned a single total score based on flavor and texture. We chose chickens from the six stores based on our overall impressions of the just-purchased, warm rotisserie chickens from 14 area stores.

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• The bird that goes around, stays around
• Taste Test: Next-day rotisserie chicken
• Leakproof beats flabby skin
• How supermarket birds stack up

Here are the results and selected comments from the judges, listed in order of total number of votes.

1. Magruder’s (Rockville). A good level of salt; firm consistency; moist.

2. BJ’s (Arlington). Some flavor but not overwhelming. Not dry.

3. Balducci’s (McLean). Slightly herby; decent-to-mealy texture.

4. Costco (Pentagon City). Flavor okay; not too salty, but dry.

5. Sam’s Club (Gaithersburg). Mild or little flavor; dry.

6. Wegmans (Fairfax). Bland, flat flavor; dry.

RECIPES:

Aromatic Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken Bistilla

Scott Drewno’s Chicken Curry Salad

Jeff Tunks’s Peruvian Chicken Stir-Fry

Silvia’s Quick Shredded Chicken

Leakproof beats flabby skin

The bird that goes around, stays around

How supermarket birds stack up