Let Them Eat Chicken: Lawmakers Push to Add Rotisserie to SNAP Benefits

Tomorrow, thousands of Colorado’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients stand to either completely lose their SNAP benefits or find them significantly reduced as new federal work requirements go into effect. 

But if Senator Michael Bennet and his colleagues have their way, those who retain their SNAP status will get expanded access to the types of food they can buy with those benefits, specifically… rotisserie chicken. 

Bennet was one of a group of senators who recently introduced the Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act. Aside from just having an awesome name, the bill is pretty straightforward. It allows SNAP users to buy hot rotisserie chicken with their benefits. Full stop. 

Why do we need an act of Congress to let SNAP users buy rotisserie chicken? Because under existing (some say outdated) rules, SNAP benefits can’t be used to buy any kind of prepared food. It’s a decades-old policy designed to keep recipients from purchasing fast food or other restaurant items considered more expensive and less healthy than products used for cooking at home. 

In recent years, though, rotisserie chicken has become an increasingly popular ingredient in online recipes designed for the home cook, thanks to its ability to pack a great deal of flavor into a wide variety of meals for minimal effort at a low price. 

Any online search for rotisserie chicken meal ideas will deliver results such as “50 Rotisserie Chicken Recipes That Make Short Work of Dinner” (Food Network) or “How To Get 5 Meals Out of One Rotisserie Chicken” (Simply Recipes). You’ll get pages of similar results from nearly every food platform, blog, and Instagram account on the Internet. 

With Costco still selling three-pound rotisserie chicken for just $4.99, it’s hard to justify calling it the kind of “extravagance” the prohibition against hot foods is meant to avoid. At those prices, it’s not dissimilar to buying canned chicken (which on a pound-for-pound basis is actually more expensive than the pre-cooked rotisserie option). 

According to the company’s annual shareholders report, Costco sold 157 million rotisserie chickens in 2025. That’s one chicken for nearly half the population of the country. 

“America’s best (and delicious) affordability play is Costco’s $4.99 rotisserie chicken 😜,” says Senator John Fetterman, who joined Bennett as one of the bill’s sponsors. “It’s one of my family’s favorites… SNAP funds would be well spent to feed our nation’s families who need it.”  

Given the Trump administration’s new dietary guidelines that support protein-rich foods — and even depict a chicken at the top of the new food pyramid — this proposal could have legs.