We’ve been huge fans of homemade chicken stock in this house. It’s simple to make, easy to freeze, and full of minerals and nutrients that you cannot get from store-bought stocks. Don’t be intimated by stock, I promise if I can do it, you can too.
Normally I hold off on making stock until I have enough bones and vegetables to make two pots (I have a bag in the freezer for this). If you are going to go through the process, why not just double it? I use filtered water from our Berkey (I eye ball this and will add more water if needed).
How to make homemade chicken stock
- Round up plenty of bones (I typically add a carcass per pot), meat+fat is fine
- Vegetable scraps, including onions, carrots, celery, leeks, broccoli (hard lesson learned, do not add bell peppers). I rarely buy vegetables for stock, just use whatever is going bad or the last bit that you’d rarely use in a recipe.
- Enough water to cover bones & vegetables
- 10 whole peppercorns
- Fresh parsley (about a 1/4 cup)
- I don’t add salt to my stock, as I’d rather be able to control that when I use the stock later on in recipes.
Place all ingredients into pot, bring to a boil, then simmer for 4-8 hours (the longer the better, to release all the yummy nutrients from the bones). Turn off and allow to come to room temperature (most times I allow it to stay on the stove overnight covered with a lid). I then strain it once through a colander, then through cheese cloth to remove all the extra bits. From there, I either place the stock directly into freezer baggies (about 2 cups in each) or into jars to be used that week. It will keep up to a year, though we never get to that point.
Homemade chicken stock is perfect for making rice (use half stock, half water), in soups & stews and really any recipe that calls for liquid. I know there are people on the interwebs that drink a cup of homemade stock a day for the added nutrients. When Anthony had a major UC flareup in April, he depleted our entire freezer by only drinking stock for a week.
