Why You Should – and How You Can – Make Home Made Chicken Broth

Who doesn’t want to come up with easy ways to save money, be thrifty, eat less preservatives and chemicals, and make foods that taste better? This one single kitchen tip can do all of those things and more. What’s my secret thrifty, tasty tip?

Making your own chicken broth! {Hey, you cheated, you looked at the title of this post!}

Here’s why this is such a great thing to do for your family:

1. Rotisserie chickens can save you time during the week, and they are much cheaper than eating out. If you live in a family as busy as mine, with as many kids as I have, this makes perfect sense. The only thing better than picking up a rotisserie at the store, would be to invest in a machine to make one yourself.

2. 1 small rotisserie chicken can make up to 4-5 meals. Don’t believe me? You get one meal after you bring the chicken home (chicken, rice, veggie). You get another meal when you pick the chicken and save what is left of the meat for a casserole or soup the next day. Then you get up to three more meals from the broth that you create when you boil the bones. I have gotten up to 18 cups of broth from one large chicken before.

3. If you make your own chicken broth, you will avoid MSG and any other chemicals that they put in canned or boxed broth. Fresh chicken broth tastes great and freezes well. It is easy to make (see recipe below), too. Once you try it, you won’t want to waste money on the store bought kind any more. Plus, you can alter it and add your own favorite spices and vegetables to the broth.

4. The western “diet dictocrats” have all led us to believe that meat and meat fat is bad for us. I challenge you to read “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon. There are so many reasons why home made broth is a needed part of the human diet. {Bone, cartilage, morrow, and vegetables combine to provide minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, colloids (found in gelatin) and electrolytes. I don’t even have time to list all the health benefits.} No wonder chicken broth is often called “Jewish Penicillin”.

So what are you waiting for? Get your STOCK on!

Home Made Chicken Stock or Broth

Ingredients:

1 rotisserie chicken, picked clean of good meat – and all parts, drippings, fat, etc. left over (I throw the whole chicken, the string that was wrapped around it’s little chicken legs, and all the skin and bones – the “science experiment” – in to my pot)

1-2 tablespoons of Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar (to pull minerals out of the bones and in to the broth)

Up to 2 large carrots, 2 stalks of celery and 1 large onion. I have also used kale, shallots and chives or green onions – basically any veggie that you have leftover. I keep a baggie in my freezer for leftover parts of all “chicken soup” vegetables – and I collect them for the next time I make broth. If you like hot stuff, you can also throw in some jalapeno or other pepper. Start small and see how it affects the flavor – you can always add more next batch.

Water enough to cover the chicken and vegetables (and a bit more because it will evaporate some)

Herbs and spices: You can put anything you like in your broth, but just remember, you’ll be straining the broth after you boil and simmer it, so it’s best to use larger things that will strain out (example: peppercorns instead of ground pepper).

Here’s what I usually put in my broth: parsley or cilantro (I use cilantro if I know I’m going to be making a Mexican soup), garlic, thyme, bay leaf, sage, rosemary, and nutmeg.

Instructions:

Put EVERYTHING in the pot and bring to a boil. Let the soup continue to boil on medium for a while, lowering the heat, but keeping a mild boil for an hour (or hour and a half). Simmer for another hour (or hour and a half).

You don’t want too much of the water to evaporate, but you can always reconstitute if it does. When the broth is done, you should be able to smoosh the chicken down in to the pot and it will collapse entirely – every bone disjointed as if it were not attached any more. It will smell divine. At that point, you will want to place a large pitcher in your sink, place a strainer over it, and pour the hot broth in to the strainer.

Allow the contents of the pot – including the chicken bones, vegetables, and spices to catch in the strainer, and the broth to flow in to the pitcher. From the pitcher, you can pour the broth in to containers to freeze, or just put the broth in the refrigerator for soup the next day.

{You might have an audience at this point. I’m just sayin’.}

Stock can be stored in the refrigerator for four days and longer if you reboil it. It can be frozen for several months. Try to store it in containers prepared ahead of time with amounts you will use, because you don’t want to refreeze or cool it again. Remember to label your stock with a creation date and mention whether it is broth (thin, ready for soup), stock (thicker, add a bit of water if you are making soup), or fumet (condensed stock – very thick and jelly-like, requiring much water to turn it back in to broth). All forms look alike when frozen.

{You can thank me for this later.}

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