Just skipping the stuffing and rolls, and adding something like green beans should help. Potatoes are not as bad as some think( unless you're like me and SUFFOCATE them with butter). Bread though, I don't see any redeeming quality other than it's utter deliciousness. Not good for weight though.

I miss stuffing. But i don't miss the belly it gave me.... .

Roasted potatoes and pumpkin or sweet potatoes, gravy, green beans or broccoli.

If I do Lars’ Algerian Roast Chicken, a green vegetable and couscous pilaf.

I usually have something like butternut squash, green beans and a side salad. I'm thinking one starch only, would help a lot with reducing calories.

I always add quarters of onion and carrots to the roasting pan. Not the healthiest in the chicken fat but delicious. Sides of mashed potatoes, stuffing and corn are my usual sides

A big salad, baked potatoes (but hide the butter and sour cream), Sicilian style marinated tomatoes, cole slaw. All are great sides and low in both cholesterol and calories.

Steamed green beans and wild rice mushroom pilaf with slivered almonds.

Kabocha squash.

Very delicious squash that does not taste like pumpkin. Taste more like sweet potatoes. It has the texture of potato. There is no need for butter or salt.

Best part: it is lower in calories than, say, butternut squash.

Roast your chicken and kabocha at the same time.

dcarch

My sides change every time....I don't have a set roast chicken menu :-) It could be a baked yam, orzo with a drizzle of OO and mizithra, couscous or tabbouleh in summer, sometimes roast potatoes. Maybe squash. And typically a green veg - asparagus, spinach, broccoli, zucchini, Brussel sprouts in winter .

I do roast chicken and then add vegetables -- nothing "always" but whatever is good at the market -- fresh green beans, acorn squash, roasted vegetables. Sometimes potatoes but not all the time. I sometimes add a cranberry chutney that I make and can. Never stuffing.

Carrots roasted in the oven are very delicious. Aspsragus is very different roasted instead of steamed. Sliced cuccumbers in rice vinegar are good with lots of things. I only use the english cuccumbers, kirbys or mini cuccumbers. The larger ones have big seeds.. Green beans done with soy sauce and ginger or garlic for a change.

If he's trying to lose a few pounds, start off with soup. Either a broth based or a veggie puree (squash, roasted red pepper, etc.) are great to fill space without a huge amount of calories. Then try roasted veggies, including root vegetables. Quinoa is an awesome side and very versatile. You can serve it warm or cold. Google some recipes. And save the dinner rolls for special occasions. I know, I miss them too!

Skip the rolls and stuffing. If you must have mashed potatoes and gravy, use buttermilk or plain yogurt in your potatoes - no butter. Sometimes we just do chicken with roasted carrots and parsnips, green beans or my favourite; rutabaga.

I also think stuffing, dinner rolls AND mashed potatoes are just too much.

I seldom stuff a roasted chicken, because neither Elery nor I care for stuffing. (shrug) Usually my side dishes include a big tray of roasted vegetables. Those can include carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, golden beets, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, buttnut squash, zucchini, yellow squash, radishes or any combination. Grandma always told me to "never bake an orphan", so if the oven is on, more than one thing is being prepared in there.

Personally, I'd prefer baked beans and cole slaw with roasted chicken, along with those roasted vegetables and the baked beans can go right in there with everything else.

Annie

For a change, cut up your chicken. Place the pieces in an oven dish. Add lots of peeled, whole shallots, bacon pieces, chunks of potatoes, whole carrots, and white wine. Cover to start the cooking then remove foil to get everything nice and golden and sticky. Serve with lots of greens, or a salad after.

In England, roast chicken must haves are crunchy roast potatoes, gravy, bread sauce and lots of veg.

No set sides for roast chicken here. Whatever is handy....

No bread or pasta, though.

If I do stuff a chicken, it tends to be with a small onion, and maybe half a lemon, and a few herbs. On the rare times these days that I find a roaster packed with its neck, heart and gizzards, I add them into the cavity. (The liver goes in the freezer for eventual pate).

Some side ideas that could be filling, yet not empty carbs: sweet potatoes (don't add brown sugar, so unnecessary!), summer or winter squash, eggplant, mushrooms, quinoa. Personally, I find the chicken itself pretty filling, so I'm often fine with lighter sides.

I always make a bed of wild and white rice on the bottom of the pan, then roast the chicken on top - lots of herbs and salt and lemon pepper rubbed on. I add just enough sherry to keep it from drying out. Then I usually have a green vegetable such as snap peas or green beans. Then I make a soup out of the leftovers with the chicken, rice and vegetables the next day.

For anyone trying to lose weight or having blood sugar problems, no potatoes at all. It's the white potatoes (along with that gravy) that are the problem, not the butter or sour cream. You could replace them with sweet potatoes--and still use butter and sour cream. Or with butternut squash.

White rice will also be a problem for anyone in the same situation. Use a whole grain--brown rice if you like it, farro, barley.

I don't have any set sides either, but I'm more likely to go with a brown rice stuffing or a pilaf than mashed potatoes and gravy. If he wants to lose weight and drop cholesterol, have him avoid things that are high in saturated fats, like gravy and butter. :)

I always do 2 veggies - no set routine, but usually something green and something not green: oven roasted green beans, asparagus, potatoes, sweet potatoes &/or squash, or sauteed/steamed broccoli w/ butter, or spinach. If I'm doing a starch it would be rice or pasta, and I rarely serve those plain, but rather do pasta w/pesto or a pilaf style rice seasoned w/ lots of fresh herbs.

And salad too.

I've been doing a lot of pan roasted dinners lately: cut up veggies placed around the chicken as it roasts in a large shallow pan. Chunks of potatoes, onions carrots & winter squash go in with the chicken, and other things get added later, depending on the cooking times. Sweet peppers & green beans take about 18 minutes @ 400F, so I subtract that from the total cooking time and set a timer accordingly. All those things make for a very flavorful pan gravy too.

Chunks of apples are also very good roasted w/ the chicken. I like a mixture of apples, onions & potatoes - both white & sweet.

Foods higher in fiber like fruits & veggies & whole grains are more satisfying than white breads & stuffing too, so you can feel more full after eating less, which certainly can help w/ weight loss.

MarthaStewart.com has some really good menu ideas and recipes for chicken dinners...

Roast Chicken Dinners @ MS

No set sides, but in winter, perhaps 1/2 a baked sweet potato with very little butter, and a green veggie, asparagus if it looks good. I often keep a jar of Stonewall Kitchen's Apple Cranberry Chutney in the kitchen and it perks up a bland roast chicken. When tomatoes and corn are in season, I have that - no corn if I'm dieting, just tomatoes and a green veggie.

So many great ideas. He is loving the roasted veggies we've been having, instead of potatoes, rice, or pasta, but he wakes in the middle of the night hungry. I jotted down lots of vegetables mentioned here that I would never have thought of. I have never cooked parsnips, rutabaga, or golden beets. Never even heard of kabocha.

I think we would like wild rice, but I've only tried to cook it once. It just never seemed to get "done". I think I ended up tossing it. I'll give it another go now that we have a rice cooker.

Thank you all for the tips!

I like Rita’s suggestion of the wild and long grain rice. To cut down on fat, do it separately in a saucepan. I like uncle bens mix. (Sorry puritans!) carrots are good too.

I'm not a puritan but, being cheap and wanting control over how much salt I use, I make my own wild rice & rice pilaf.

I saute some onion and celery and add it to the wild rice and water along with a handful of dried cranberries. Simmer for 30 minutes then add more water and jasmine rice and continue to simmer for another 13-15 minutes. (Wild rice needs a total of 45 minutes cooking time.)

Brown rice would be a better choice (adjust the timing because brown rice takes longer to cook) but I love the flavor combo using jasmine rice.

Love this combination; I could make a meal out of it. Any leftovers, I heat up for lunch.

BUT....remember that "paddy rice" that black grained stuff you get in the super market is not wild rice but another grain altogether....and takes lots longer to cook than real wild rice grown by the Ojibwe in Minnesota and Canada.

Sure enough. I checked my package of wild rice. It's cultivated, Minnesota grown. Never had the real McCoy, I guess. The cultivated stuff cooks in 45 minutes (maybe less, if you have a fresh package; mine isn't fresh.)

Forgot to mention that I often use chkn broth instead of water but everyone probably already knows to do that.

Grandma used to tell me to "never bake an orphan", so I put as many things into an oven as I can fit in. Brown rice actually cooks very well in the oven, I got that tip from Alton Brown and now that's the only way I ever cook brown rice. Plus it can go right in there with the chicken.

I disagree about white potatoes. A medium potato has 110 calories and no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium. It is an excellent source of Vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana if you eat that skin. 2 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein, as well as some B6. Even Weight Watchers lets me have 1/2 cup of potatoes for only 2 points. Butter, though, has about the same number of calories in a single tablespoon, and no fiber and virtually no vitamins other than a bit of Vitamin A. Pretty much 100% fat too, but it sure tastes good. It takes 1/4 cup of sour cream to reach those 100+ calories and it does have a tiny bit of protein, but not many other redeeming values.

So, as a nutritionist and my doctor told me a couple of years ago, potato has gotten a "bad rap". It really is the stuff you put on top of them that adds fat, salt and calories, but it's a challenge to make them without that stuff. A white potato will raise blood sugar more than a sweet potato and a sweet potato is more nutritious, but sometimes they just won't do the trick. Try putting some chili on that potato, or some low fat salad dressing or even, as Ashley does, A-1 sauce. Even a little butter and sour cream is OK, but I never use just a little butter. It's always a LOT of butter, somehow...

Annie

I also lik potato salad especially in the summer

Salsa goes a long way on a baked fluffy russet with Daisy Light sour cream.