Homemade Chicken Broth

Yesterday’s whole chicken brings us to ~ Step 2, heavenly Homemade Chicken Broth. 

Once I began to save veggie scraps and chicken carcasses on a regular basis, I knew homemade chicken stock was in our future.

There are several methods to choose from when making chicken broth. A good old heavy pot with snug fitting lid works well, as does your crockpot or instant pot. 

If you’re like us, when you finish eating a nice roast chicken dinner you just don’t feel like pickin’ the chicken. 

So don’t. 

Wrap it in foil in the fridge and revisit it tomorrow. 

To make it easier to remove the meat from the bones, heat carcass in 200 degree oven for 15 – 20 minutes.  Remove all the good meat and reserve for soup or chicken salad :)  Discard all skin and fat possible….we’ll skim off the rest of the fat later.

If you don’t already, keep a large zipper top bag in your freezer for collecting veggie peels and scraps, along with chicken bones and carcasses. This is how you make FREE Chicken Broth.

If you want to build a richer deep flavored broth, try oven roasting the bones and scraps before simmering. Place into a roasting pan, drizzle with a little olive oil and bake at 400 deg. F. for about 25-30 minutes.

Making Homemade Broth

• Add 2 bay leafs, 1 handful fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, sage all work well), and 8-10 peppercorns. 
• Put remaining chicken carcass and all bones, along with reserved gizzards, into pot.
• Add chunks of carrot, celery, and/or onion, along with any scraps from your freezer.
• Fill pot with water to about an inch above ingredients. 
• Cover tightly and bring to a gentle simmer.  No need to boil, the flavors build through a long gentle simmer. 

If you’re using a traditional pot, you should plan on at least 6 hours, more if you have time.  And you may need to skim foam off the top periodically. 

If you’re using a crockpot, let it go all day and overnight. For Instant Pot, I run several broth cycles.

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• Once broth has simmered desired length of time, pour through a colander reserving broth, discarding bones and veggie scraps. 
• Now it’s time to cool down the broth so that the fat separates and is easily skimmed off the top.  It can take several hours or even overnight in the fridge to fully cool. 
• Once you’ve skimmed the fat, I like to warm the broth and strain it one more time through a fine mesh sieve or even cheese cloth.

Now it’s ready to be turned into ~ Step 3, a special soup.  Or, due to other dinner arrangements, this batch of broth is headed straight to the freezer.

Looking for some Soup Inspiration? Here is a collection of our favorites for your viewing pleasure.

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All my best,
xo Libby