Chicken Broth

I love making a big pot of chicken broth every few months.  I try to keep up a steady supply of it rotating in my freezer so I never run out, but sometimes, I end up having to buy it anyway.  Which is, okay!  There are a lot of really good store-bought versions available now.  

With this broth, I will be making two different soups over the next couple of days.  Two of my favorite soups.  Actually, I love soup of all kinds so it’s really hard to pick a favorite.  But for this week, I’ll narrow it down to two that I will need this chicken broth for. 

I had made two roasted chicken breasts this week.  They were on sale, BOGO Free, so I couldn’t pass it up.  I seasoned with some salt and pepper and threw them in the oven until they were fully roasted, and nice and brown.

This will not only flavor our broth, but I will be shredding up  that chicken for some soup, some chicken salad for sandwiches, some chicken tacos, and lots of other yummy chicken dishes.  I shred the chicken up and then place it in some bags I have vacuüm sealed and throw them in the freezer.  I always end up needing some diced or shredded chicken for something I’m cooking, so it’s really convenient to have on hand when you need it.   Some I shred, since I’ll be using those in soups and for tacos, and some I dice up for chicken salad or some chicken and rice, etc.

 

I also like to do one like this, where I dice up some onions, celery, and carrots and vacuüm seal them together. This way when I decide to make some chicken soup, I just have to dump this all in.

Get everything you will be throwing into your broth cut up and ready to go.  I use bay leaves, carrots, celery and onions.  I just wash them and cut them up.  You don’t need to be fancy with this since you are only going to cook these into the broth and then discard them later when you strain it.

Get a large stock pot ready and fill it almost 3/4 of the way full with water.  Dump in all of your cut vegetables and one of the chicken breasts you just roasted.  You can also use a cut up chicken fryer, or other various chicken pieces of your choice.  You can cook these from their raw state in the broth, but I like to roast them first.  To me, it gives it more flavor.  I throw it in with the skin.  Sometimes I’ll use a rotisserie chicken we got from the grocery store.

Set this all on the stove, cover and boil away. 

Allow this to simmer for a minimum of an hour.  Most of the time I will let it go for an hour and a half.  When done, get a large bowl and strain out your broth.  Discard all the vegetables and the bay leaves.  I will cover it at this point and then place it in the refrigerator overnight.  The next morning you can come in and discard the layer of fat that has risen to the top.

Prepare what you will need to freeze this.  I normally use a large gallon size Ziploc freezer bag and then freeze the rest of the broth in smaller containers.  This way, I have one whole bag to use when I’m making soup, and smaller servings to use for cooking various other recipes where you only need a cup or two of broth.

I will also tell you that I under salt this, extremely.  The reason is there will be recipes I use this broth in that have ingredients in them where I can’t control the salt content, and adding a salty broth to them is not a good idea.  When I’m making something with the stock that does not contain other ingredients with a high salt content, I can control that by adding my level of salt. 

CHICKEN BROTH:

• Roasted Chicken, either cut up or whole with the skin on.
• 10 – 12 Cups of Water
• 3 Stalks of Celery with the leaves
• 3 Large Carrots, peeled
• 1 Large Onion, quartered
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 1 tsp. Kosher Salt
• 1 tsp. Ground Black Pepper

Fill a large stock pot 3/4 of the way full with water. 

Cut up your onions, celery and carrots into large pieces, and add to the pot.  Add in your two bay leaves, salt, pepper and chicken. 

Cover and bring to a full boil.  Turn down to simmer and allow this to cook away for an hour to an hour and a half. 

Strain out the chicken, vegetables and bay leaves.  Discard all vegetables and bay leaves and place the chicken to the side to cool enough to handle.  Place the broth into a large bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the skin from the chicken and shred or dice the chicken pieces.  Place the chicken into several freezer bags to use for other recipes and seal them. 

The next morning, remove the broth from the refrigerator and strain off all the fat that has hardened on the top.  Then freeze in some individual containers or freezer bags and use when you need it!