• by Teresa Buyikian , October 17, 2023

This week Chick-fil-A announced the release of its first cookbook, with a purpose: to raise awareness of food insecurity and the importance of reducing food waste.

Recipes in the free digital cookbook, “Extra Helpings: Inspiring Stories and Imaginative Recipes from Chick-fil-A Shared Table,” are inspired by local nonprofit partners from the U.S. and Canada that repurpose Chick-fil-A food.

The cookbook supports the Chick-fil-A Shared Table food donation program, which helps restaurant operators fight hunger in their local communities by donating their surplus food.

The cookbook features recipes for breakfasts, side dishes, dinners and desserts, including breakfast casseroles, chicken enchiladas and apple cobbler, all of which use common extra food items found in home kitchens (and several Chick-fil-A items, like in the Nugget Fried Rice). It also includes such Chick-fil-A retired recipes as coleslaw and chicken salad.

Customers can view the free digital cookbook by visiting extrahelpings.com.

"Our goal for 'Extra Helpings' is not only to inspire individuals to reimagine their extra food into new … recipes, but (to) also spark conversations about the important issues of food insecurity and food waste," said Brent Fielder, senior director of corporate social responsibility for Chick-fil-A, Inc. in a release.

Since the launch of the Shared Table program in 2012, over 2,000 Chick-fil-A restaurants across 47 states and Canada have donate surplus food to local soup kitchens, shelters and nonprofits. The company will launch the program in Puerto Rico later this fall. More than 23 million meals have been created from the donations. The Chick-fil-A Shared Table program also supports the company’s social responsibility goal of diverting more than 25 million pounds of restaurant food waste from landfills by 2025.

In addition to the cookbook launch, Chick-fil-A will also donate a collective $1 million this  October to Feeding America, Second Harvest in Canada and seven Chick-fil-A Shared Table nonprofit partners.