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| This is a fast food burger bun that has been kept in our freezer after an outing to McDonalds -- that's frost, not mold. |
When it comes to Sunday lunches out two of our family members have a penchant for McDonalds. So we do choose that establishment once or twice per month. It doesn't hurt that it can be very affordable. However, I'm not a huge fan of all of the bready stuff -- burger/sandwich buns. What I do love are salads. When we choose McDonalds, I order a side salad ($1.99), and a McChicken sandwich ($1.00). I open the salad and sandwich and scrape the lettuce and mayo from the McChicken onto the salad, then I slice the chicken patty into strips to add to the greens -- my own chicken and greens salad. If the McDonalds has Caesar dressing, then I get a Chicken Caesar salad for $2.99. And yes, it is tasty -- so much so that one of my daughters now follows me in her fast food lunch choice.
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| bread crumbs from the above, salvaged burger bun |
Here's the bonus. You know that I don't like to waste food. McDonalds packages the salad dressing with a fork and knife in a plastic bag. I use this bag to hold the burger bun that is leftover from my McChicken after removing the lettuce, mayo, and chicken patty. Once home, I pop the bun into the freezer. When I make meatloaf, I pull one of these saved buns from the freezer and pulse into crumbs in the food processor to add to the ground meat. Nothing wasted, and I got just the lunch that I wanted at a reasonable price.
To give you a price comparison, the same McDonalds has a Chicken Southwest Salad that sells for $4.79 and a Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad that sells for $4.59. Both of these salads contain a comparable amount of food to my chicken salad concoction. Yet, my salad is 1/3 cheaper.
How about you? Do you ever take the various components of fast food items and concoct something more to your liking? Would you save a burger bun to use as bread crumbs for another meal?
