Chick-Fil-A Just Released Their First-Ever Cookbook—And It's For An Important Cause

The digital cookbook is available for download right now.

Chick-fil-A's recipes are typically closely-guarded secrets, but now, for the sake of raising awareness for issues important to them, the Atlanta-based restaurant chain is releasing some of their favorites—along with other recipes designed to show you how to use up your leftover Chick-fil-A favorites.

Chick-fil-A just launched Extra Helpings, their first-ever cookbook. This release is in part an effort to raise awareness of the restaurant's ongoing work to fight food insecurity and reduce food waste.

In the U.S. alone, food insecurity impacts 34 million Americans, of which 9 million are children. What's more, 160 billion pounds of food is wasted in American homes and kitchens every year. Reclaiming even a small bit of that could go a long way toward easing the food insecurity issues facing so many people today.

Chick-fil-A's food donation program called Shared Table connects restaurants with local non-profits to donate surplus food to soup kitchens, shelters, and other organizations so that those groups can turn around and give that food to people with need.

Now, those community partners are sharing their favorite "leftover" Chick-fil-A recipes in the new cookbook, which is available at extrahelpings.com.

In addition to five classic Chick-fil-A recipes (like their Chicken Salad and Coleslaw), you'll find 11 recipes from the nonprofit partners, including Chicken Nachos from Boca Helping Hands in Boca Raton, Fla. and Ice Cream Sandwiches from FeedNC in Charlotte, N.C.

Shared Table has helped organize these meal donations across 47 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Canada. The program helps Chick-fil-A fulfill its corporate social responsibility goal to divert 25 million pounds of food waste from landfills by the year 2025. To date in 2023, they've reclaimed 4.8 million pounds of restaurant food waste.

In addition to the cookbook release, Chick-fil-A is donating $1 million to organizations that are doing the work of addressing food insecurity across the U.S. and Canada. Of that total, seven current Chick-fil-A Shared Table partners will get $100,000, with $150,000 going to both Feeding America and Second Harvest.

The great thing about these recipes is that they can inspire you to get creative with your own leftovers. Did you order too many chicken strips? First Baptist Church of Apopka in Apopka, Fla., turned those strips into a sweet-and-spicy dinner with the addition of barbecue sauce, adobo sauce, and a bit of honey.

Currently, 2,000 Chick-fil-A restaurants participate in the Shared Table program, but as communities become aware of this opportunity, and as customers learn more about the benefits of it, hopefully that footprint will expand, and Chick-fil-A will continue to find ways to keep bringing delicious food out of the food waste category and into breakfast, lunch, and dinner for people looking for a delicious meal.

Down the cookbook at extrahelpings.com, and enjoy trying these new and delicious recipes.

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