Making Chicken Stock

I started making my own chicken broth/stock about a year ago after watching Alton Brown and Ina Garten show me how. I was tired of buying the canned broth that was mostly salt water.
I used their recipes as a guide but I had to make it a bit more budget friendly (Ina uses 3 - 5lb whole chickens!! and after boiling them for 4 hours, I'm sure she probably discards them)

I start with buying cheap chicken. If I have leftover chicken carcasses from roasting whole chickens, I use them but I haven't roasted a chicken in a while. I have used wings when they were on sale. This time I found 3.5 lbs of drumsticks for $3.50.
Then throw in a couple of onions, a bunch of carrots and celery, a whole head of garlic sliced in half. No need to chop anything. Just throw them in whole.

I don't add herbs or salt to my broth like most recipes call for. I'm never sure what type of recipe I'm going to use the broth in so I like to keep my broth flexible. I add seasonings to the soup when I'm cooking it.

Then get a huge pot, throw everything in and fill it with water. Cover it and bring it to a boil then back the heat down to medium to let it simmer.

You can make this stock on a much smaller scale with less of each ingredient... though if you make the ratio of ingredients to water higher, you'll get a richer stock.

Let the broth boil for 6-8 hours!! Yes, it's very important. Your house will smell like chicken soup.

Next get a big bowl and put it in the sink with a colander inside.

Carefully pour the stock through the colander, into the bowl. (I don't mind tiny bits of chicken in my broth but if you want a clearer stock, you can line the colander with cheesecloth)

It took 3 huge bowls and a pitcher to empty the pot of the broth. Throw away the stock ingredients after you've emptied all the stock from the pot. After 8 hours of boiling, there's no flavor left in that chicken anymore.

You can put this into containers to freeze right away or put the big bowls of stock in the fridge overnight to cool.

The next day when I took them out, the fat has floated to the top allowing me to skim most of it off easily with a spoon. Sometimes I just leave it... it doesn't make much difference.


Then get out whatever containers you want to use to freeze the broth in. I find that quart yogurt containers work great for me.

We go through 2 quarts of yogurt a week around here so if anyone needs containers, let me know! I'd happily send some to you :)

Then line them up in the freezer until frozen. My huge pot made 15 quarts of broth.

*Again, not everyone has the crazy amount of freezer space that I do. You can make this broth in a smaller pot and make much less at a time*

I usually move the broth from these containers to gallon sized freezer bags. I can fit 2 quart blocks of broth in one bag. Just let the containers sit at room temp. for about 10 minutes and the outside will melt enough for you to pop them out into the bag.