Homemade Chicken Stock
I made my first chicken stock from scratch last year from some recipe I found in a cookbook. I found that it was okay, but definitely lacking in flavor and I thought it used up a lot of good vegetables for such a bland stock.
Then this spring I came across Christina’s vegetable stock recipe, she shared that she keeps all the cut offs from various vegetables and stores them in a large freezer bag to use in her stocks. I thought this sounded amazing, how about making homemade chicken stock purely out of stuff that I would have just thrown away (or composted). This was right up my simple living alley.
So I started saving the ends and peels of carrots, leftover bits of garlic and onion and their skins, broccoli stems, pepper stems, insides and seeds, the ends of celery stalks as well as any herb trimmings. In just a few short weeks I filled up my freezer bag. I then made a whole chicken for supper one night (I always use my slow cooker for whole chicken, so easy) and after supper I placed the remaining bones and skins from the chicken into a 6 quart stock pot with as much of my frozen vegetable trimmings as I could fit, filled it with water and let it simmer.
A few hours later I had an amazing chicken stock that I made from what would normally be wasted food. I just love that!
I also like that I get to choose how much salt gets added into my stock (none!) and bone broth has a lot of health benefits including reducing joint pain, heals the gut and promotes healthy digestion, prevents infection, promotes healthy bones, gives healthy hair and nail growth and fights inflammation (who knew it did so much?)!
I mainly use the chicken stock for rice, whenever I make rice I just use the chicken stock in place of water. And of course I love it for soups, I guess with all the benefits of bone broth there really is something to the whole idea of having a bowl of chicken noodle soup when you are sick.
What recipes do you use chicken stock in?
Do you make your own stock?
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Love our homemade bone broth! We make against all grain’s recipe. She actually calls for a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar which pulls all the minerals out of the bones which makes it so healthy!
I’ve heard of that before, maybe I’ll have to try it next time I make it, thanks!
My stomach is growling now..this looks so homey and delicious!
I know, right?! It just seems so natural and delicious.
amazing! I always throw away those pieces, and we buy a big box of organic chicken stock from Costco a lot of times instead of making our own. Love this idea, and I’m going to try it out!
Definitely give it a try, it will save you a good amount of money over time!
I will definitely be making this come fall! 🙂 yum yum
Thanks for the recipe!
am so going to try this out
I’m vegetarian so I stick to making veggie stock, but I love this idea of using the cut-offs of veggies! Usually I end up using fresh veggies, and my husband sometimes eats them afterwards, but sometimes they just got to waste. This is brilliant! I need to start stocking up 😉
Yes, you can totally do the same thing by just eliminating the chicken and doing just straight veggies, you’ll just need more of them. But start saving those ends and pieces you normally throw away and you’d be surprised with how quickly you have enough to make a stock!