Generally roasting. If I'm making soup, I cook the whole chicken for about an hour, remove the breast meat, then return to the pot for another hour or two.

I prefer beer can chicken in the smoker. Love how moist it is. My preference.

Mimi-----You just put the whole chicken into a pot of water, and it cooks up in an hour? Then the rest is returned to get the remaining flavor from the bones, etc. Have I got that right? Sounds pretty easy to me, easier than roasting.

Socks, I'll cook a whole chicken like that. I usually use that for soups & casseroles. The broth I freeze and use as stock.

I put cook it with onion, carrots & celery. And throw in all kinds of seasonings. Smells good and tastes good too! After it cools, I de-bone, package it up in small freezer bags & freeze.

I put the whole chicken in a pot of cold water, along with aromatics, peppercorns and whatever else I might have on hand for flavor.

Once the water comes to a steady simmer, I set the timer for an hour. Remove and reserve the white meat and return the chicken to the pot to simmer on low.

A whole chicken will feed my family for at least two meals. For the first meal, I bake it in the oven with an onion, stalk or two of celery, salt, pepper and a couple of bay leaves until it's done. After we eat that meal, I debone the leftover chicken and cut it up into small pieces. All of the drippings and carcass go into a pot of water. I cook that for an hour or so until everything is falling apart. Strain, let juice sit in refrigerator or freezer until cooled and fat has floated to top. Remove fat and then can use broth for whatever or freeze for later use. It tastes a lot better than the stuff from the can.

I'd roast it for sure. Here's the recipe I use. It's from Kathy-Lee an old KTer.

I like the flavor of roasted chicken for chicken salad. I'll often roast one whole and we'll have dinner - more than half of it is going to be left for whatever else I'd like it for....chicken or chicken salad sandwiches, chicken in a green salad...

I use a spanek type vertical roaster only mine is graniteware brand. I poke some coarsely chopped garlic into the cavity, insert a half lemon to kind of hold the garlic in ;) 15 minutes in a preheated 450F oven for the first pound of bird, reduce heat to 350 for 15-18 minutes a pound for any pounds over one.

But, I've poached breasts when I need chicken salad 'fixins' quicker than that. Maybe 20 minutes for bone in breast halves.

AAA--that looks yummy. A little different from most recipes. I like the combo of mayo and sour cream.

The chicken is in the pot, smelling good too. Thanks everyone.

Socks.....you can stew a chicken in less than an hour! You'll end up with dry rubber chicken after "hours". ;-)

I buy a roast chicken from Costco. ;-)

I poach it. I don't cook anything fot "hours". Bring water to boil. Cook about ten min. Turn down and cover and cook about fofty min

I boil chicken for that kind of use. An hour or less depending on the size of the chicken should do it. I put chunks of onion and celery, sprigs or fresh rosemary, thyme and sage, s & p in the pot to give it lots of good flavor. You can use dried herbs if you don't have fresh. After I debone it I put it back in the pot to get all the goodness out of the bones.

Sushipup--for 80 cents more, I could have had a fully cooked chicken from Costco! Believe me I considered that! However, our Costco is a nightmare, fight for parking, fight cart gridlock in the store, no cart etiquette at all, lots of rudeness, stand in long lines. My heart wasn't in it!

[Off topic: I actually did have an argument with a woman in the Costco parking lot. I sat for 5-10 minutes--blinker on--waiting for a man to load his car and go. He pulled out, a woman whipped into his place because I wasn't positioned to move in so fast. I haven't been so mad in years; the adrenalin was flowing. I told her to get out of my spot, she did but said I was rude! Oh yeah, I was rude.]

When you cook meat in water, the meat loses flavor to the water. That's fine if you're making a stew of some kind and the liquid remains with the meat. Otherwise, if you're going to use the meat separately, it will be much more flavorful if cooked dry - whether roasted, grilled, on a BBQ, sauteed or however.

I don't like to use a roasting bag, that actually winds up steaming the meat rather than roasting it. The browning you get from roasting adds to the flavor.

Socks already has the chicken in the pot, but for what it's worth, for chicken salad, I'll steam poach it. Poaching is the standard for chicken salad precisely because you're not adding flavor to the chicken or browning it. It also needs a moister texture, because for chicken salad it should be soft, for the traditional style. Steam poaching achieves that without the goodness going out into the water, though it is more fuss and bother.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with using seasoned and roasted chicken, if you like the result. It's just not the traditional way. I will make chicken salad with leftover roasted chicken, and it's fine, but I prefer poached for serving to company.

Cooks Illustrated is my gold standard for recipes. Here's what they say for chicken salad:

"To perfect our chicken salad recipe so that our chicken actually tasted good, not bland or waterlogged, we tried wet cooking methods, including poaching and steaming, roasting in foil (which is similar to steaming), and, in a method new to us, dropping the chicken into simmering aromatic water and then removing the pot from the heat and letting the chicken and water cool to room temperature. Unfortunately, all four methods produced a bland, unmistakably boiled flavor. True roast chicken was another matter. Even after the flavorful skin and bones were removed, the meat tasted roasted, and the resulting chicken salad recipe was superb."

As Mimi suggested, I removed the bulk of the white meat for chicken salad after about an hour. Let the rest cook a little longer. I'll use the broth for chicken soup. I'm a little embarrassed to tell y'all that the rest of the meat was picked off the bones for the dog to mix with kibble.

My dogs always get some dark meat in their meals and as treats. Glad it turned out well.