Stocking up on Chicken Stock
- Jenni Lippold
- Sep 18, 2015
- 2 min read
Stocking up on Chicken Stock
My easy-to-do-crock-pot-recipes include chicken stock, which last time I checked, absolutely no one has in bulk. No one. SO, I get to make my own.
Doing a little research showed that really all you need to have is some left over chicken carcass stuff, and some veggies. A bunch of recipes seemed a little too pain staking- I mean they all start the same with bringing a pot of water to boil with the carcass ( left over bones, skin...) and veggies with some herbs, but then some have you skim stuff off the top every 20 minutes 'throughout the better part of a day'. Ugh- who has time for that? Absolutely not a mom who works both outside the home and in with a toddler- and especially not someone trying this new fangled Zero Waste Challenge because it has been a lot of work!
But I found a great recipe that said the word "easy" in it. And the site itself is named SimplyRecipes ( again, simple in the name is a win for me). Perfect. You put your ingredients in large pot will boiling water, and hit it above a simmer for four hours, uncovered. Then pour the contents of the pot through a stainer into a big bowl and voila- the strainer removes floaties and the liquid is rich chicken stock, when you can then pour into canning jars and freeze. No need to water-bath can these puppies, only screw on the lids and caps and into the freezer they go ( after you let them cool down to room temp of course).
They will last for up to a year in your freezer. Once unfrozen for a recipe, use it all within about a week.
Almost two weeks ago I had made baked whole chicken and kept the carcass, bones, giblets, and any extra skin from left overs in a container in the fridge. I used it along with a handful of celery, chopped carrots, 1 whole onion chopped, 1/2 cup of parsley ( fresh from the garden in back), a tablespoon of salt and 1/2 tablespoon of pepper. All the goods go into a big boiling pot with water about 3/4s of the way filling the pot. I left it at just above a simmer for the four hours, let it cool, ran the liquid through the strainer into a bowl and bam, got about 6 12oz jars full of chicken stock.
An added plus is that it was raining outside and chilly and my house now smelled like amazing chicken noodle soup! Which, due to the weather, was rather pleasant.
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