I do love a headline that includes “breast” and “three way,” but this post isn’t that sexy. It’s just your weekly installment of Stretch Your Food Dollar. If you’ve been following along on a regular basis, you know that I’m a vegetarian. But, far be it from me to withhold cooking tips that could help you carnivores out there get the most out of your monthly food budget.

There was another recall announced on beef last week. E coli, ya’ll, it’s what’s for dinner. Since beef is so risky and just downright unhealthy, how about chicken? A recent article in the New York Times suggests that by poaching and shredding chicken, you can get much more mileage out of a single chicken breast than if you serve the breast whole. I agree. So here are three easy recipes that you can make with a single chicken breast.

Remember my tips for packing a sack lunch? I had a recipe for a turkey salad sandwich, but you could easily make that recipe with chicken. You don’t need to bother with dicing the chicken if you’ve got a nice batch of shredded meat.

How about tacos? I’m a little lazy, so I like to use the prepared taco shells so that I don’t have to fry them myself. But if you use taco-sized flour tortillas, you could have soft tacos, which are just as easy to make, and probably a little cheaper. Use shredded chicken, chiffonade some lettuce, dice up onions and tomatoes, sprinkle on a little shredded cheese, and you’re set. Add a little salsa verde on top, and oh, man! That’s lovin’.

You could also make chicken and rice, or chicken noodle soup. Save the broth that you made by poaching your chicken. Save it in a mason jar in the fridge. Then use the broth to boil some rice or noodles, add your shredded chicken and some frozen (or fresh) vegetables just before the rice/noodles are finished. That’s it. This would be great for dinner, as well as a brown bag lunch.

A little bit can go a long way if you rethink meat and take it out of the center of your dinner plate. Think of meat more like a side dish, and you’ll have no problem stretching your food dollar.