Chicken Stock Soup Base This healthful, flavorful broth will make your soups really stand apart from those made with canned broth.  It’s also a great way to use bones from roasted chickens and stretch one meal into multiple!  The health benefits of homemade stock abound – vitamins, minerals, and glucosamine/chondroitin from the joints and bones are just a few (grandma was right, chicken broth is the best!).

Ingredients

Directions

To make chicken stock:

Quarter whole chicken and put in large stock pot, cover with cold water. Stir gently, discard dirty water. Fill pot (enough to cover chicken) with cold water and put on medium-low heat. Add vinegar.

Alternatively: Save bones from roasted chicken, turkey, etc. and use those for a more flavorful stock! Even if you’re baking bone-in chicken breasts, save the bones – you can freeze them to get a big batch together to have enough to make stock if you need to.  Also : using chicken feet (you can get these at butcher shops or asian markets usually quite inexpensively) added to the stock makes it absolutely fantastic. Don’t be afraid to try!  Necks, backs, gizzards, and these extra parts are also great stock-makers. They don’t have to be cooked, just rinse them and toss them in the pot.

Motto of best-ever-chicken-stock : Skim the scum or your stock will suck! A little attention will go a long way to making better soup. Use a spoon to skim off debris/foam from the top. Do not let the stock boil – you want to keep it at a gentle simmer so the ‘scum’ doesn’t get get reincorporated into the soup . Let the stock simmer for at least 2-3 hours, or longer until the bones start to become more rubbery and the color of the stock more golden.

Dice onion, carrots, and celery, add to stock along with salt/pepper/bay leaves. Simmer for 1 hour, stirring  gently on occasion, until chicken is thoroughly cooked and just starting to fall off the bone. Continually skim the stock (it's easier after the onions and other veggies have sunk into the stock mix) - your goal is to get rid of all the fat and foam off the top of the soup. Try not to take too much liquid, just the top layer of uck.  Salt stock to taste (you don’t want it super salty since as you reduce it down that will just increase – or save adding extra salt for when you make soup).

Gently remove chicken with tongs, allowing extra stock to drip back into soup. Place on cutting board or platter and let cool.  Alternatively, if you used a chicken carcass remove that and discard.

Line a colander or strainer with a layer of paper towels and strain the stock into a large bowl or tupperware container.  This helps get rid of any extra impurities/scum that has accumulated.

At this point you can reduce it down further if you want super concentrated stock for easy storage (or for use in sauces). If you do that, add some water back into it when you use it to prepare soup. Otherwise – you are done here! 

Refrigerate stock (covered) and remove the top layer of fat (discard) after it forms.  Stock will be very satiny or sometimes completely gelatin – this is perfect! The gelatin texture will go away when reheated for soup and will leave an amazing silky texture to the stock when you eat it.

Stock can be frozen (you can pour it into ice cube trays, freeze that, then store the cubes if you want single serve portions!) for up to 4-6 months.  Refrigerated fresh stock should be used within 5-7 days.