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Homemade Chicken Stock

There are so many good quality pre-made stocks available at the store now, but they’re just not quite as comforting as a homemade stock.

I am fortunate that I learned at a very young age how to make homemade stock. My mother, who has always been very frugal, never let anything go to waste. Any time we had roasted chicken or turkey, she saved the carcass for stock.

This is a very rustic, homey recipe for stock.

To make homemade chicken stock from a leftover roasted whole chicken, first removed as much of the meat as you can from the bones. I like to remove the skin, if there’s any left, because it just adds fat to the stock. Set this meat aside for the soup, or to make a chicken salad or curry … whatever you like.

If you’ve saved the neck and giblets from the whole bird, you’ll want to add them, too. Don’t add the liver, though, as it will lend a bitter flavor to the stock.

Clean and trim a few large carrots, stalks of celery, onion, clove or two of garlic, a few sprigs of fresh rosemary, thyme, and parsley. Cut the carrots and celery into about 2-inch chunks, quarter the onions. I also like to add a couple of Roma tomatoes, quartered.

Place the carcass in a large, heavy bottomed stock. Add the vegetables and herbs. Add about 6 whole peppercorns. Cover with cool water. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce the heat to low and allow to simmer a few hours. How long you simmer is going to depend on a lot of factors, so you’ll go by taste and sight. The vegetables will be completely cooked and very soft after a few hours. I cooked this stock for about 4 hours before straining.

Allow the stock to cook a little, then with a slotted spoon scoop out as many solids as you can. I like to place the solids in a colander inside a large bowl so I can catch any liquid that drains from them. Strain the stock through a fine sieve, or if you desire through cheesecloth. Don’t skip this step – you want to be sure to capture any bone fragments that may have separated from the carcass.

Chicken Vegetable Soup

Depending on how much meat there left was on the carcass, you may want to pick through the solids and pick any remaining meat off the bones. You can add this to soup.

If you’re making soup right away, then set the hot stock aside while you’re preparing your soup, otherwise you will want to quick chill it and keep it refrigerated until you’re ready to use it. It will keep a few days in the refrigerator.

Soup recipe coming soon!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2014 at 2:43 am and is filed under Comfort Food, Soups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.