Chick-Fil-A Debuts Free Cookbook With Recipes Featuring Fan-Favorite Menu Items

Chick-fil-A's menu already serves millions of customers a year from their retail locations and drive-thrus, and now the chicken chain wants to help you cook at home. According to a press release, the company is publishing its first cookbook, which is inspired by the Shared Table program to donate food that Chick-fil-A started back in 2012. The cookbook is centered around the theme of reducing food waste and helping to fight food insecurity with recipes that utilize common leftovers and pantry items. Titled "Extra Helpings: Inspiring Stories and Imaginative Recipes from Chick-fil-A Shared Table," the collection of recipes and stories is entirely digital and available for free online.

Many of the recipes in the cookbook come straight from non-profit organizations that work with Chick-fil-A's Shared Table program, which takes unused food from restaurants to people in need. Brent Fielder, senior director of corporate social responsibility for Chick-fil-A says, "Our goal for 'Extra Helpings' is not only to inspire individuals to reimagine their extra food into new, delicious recipes, but also spark conversations about the important issues of food insecurity and food waste."

Chick-fil-A sees the new cookbook as a tool that will help expand the impact of Shared Table and "address the root causes of both hunger and food waste." Alongside the launch of the online cookbook, the company will donate a total of $1 million to Feeding America, Canada's Second Harvest, and seven nonprofit partners working on food insecurity.

The Chick-fil-A cookbook has a total of 26 recipes covering every meal of the day, and, unsurprisingly, heavily features chicken. There are recipes for classics like chicken pot pie and chicken noodle soup, alongside some more unique meals like chicken nugget fried rice and chicken nachos. For the big Chick-fil-A fans out there, it even contains some recipes for restaurant favorites like coleslaw and discontinued items like chicken salad. There is also additional advice on preventing food waste, including tips about meal planning, proper food storage, and composting.

Since its conception, the Shared Table program has donated nearly 23 million meals from almost 2,000 Chick-fil-A locations. The program has expanded rapidly alongside the growing chain, with the company having taken almost 10 years to hit the 10 million meal mark, and then more than doubling that number in the last two years. The recipes in the new cookbook mirror the process used to conserve food in the program, where local non-profit partners pick up uneaten food like chicken nuggets and transform it into dishes like casseroles and stir-fries before distributing the meals at soup kitchens and senior centers. While the recipes on their own look like a great incentive to check out Chick-fil-A's new free cookbook, the mission is even more worthwhile.