If you’ve been cooking for any length of time, you probably know that many recipes call for chicken broth as a base. I try my hardest to stay away from packaged foods, especially those that yield a whopping 700mg of sodium per teaspoon, which makes 1 cup of broth. That’s a whopping 30% of the recommended daily allowance of sodium in one eansie weansie (I have no idea how to spell that) little teaspoon. And don’t even get me started on the monosodium glutamate, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate and hydrogenated palm oil.
I don’t even know how to pronounce most of these ingredients and as a general rule, I do my best not to eat or cook with ingredients I can’t pronounce. And since trying to pronounce most of the ingredients in bouillon, even the better than bouillon, is much like repeating a tongue twister ten times in one minute (you get the picture), I try to steer clear of it altogether.
Before you sink to the floor in a puddle of tears (a little exaggeration!) at the mere thought that you don’t have any other choice when you’re cooking a recipe that calls for chicken broth, I’ve got some great news! Homemade chicken broth is super easy to make. It can be made with vegetable scraps and it’s packed with real, healthy ingredients!
Better yet, you can make a big batch and freeze the portions you don’t need right away for use in future cooking adventures. If you ask me, that’s a win!
In my own humble (or not so humble) opinion, the best chicken broth is made from the carcass of a roasted chicken.
Simply pick off the chicken that wasn’t eaten, save it for another meal and retain everything else (bones, drippings and all). Don’t worry if you don’t have a chicken carcass to use; you can also use chicken breast or chicken thighs to make a tasty and healthy broth!
Here’s what you’ll need…
- 1 roasted chicken carcass, 2 large chicken breasts or 3 chicken thighs
- 5 stalks celery or 1 celery core (the center)
- 5 large carrots
- 1 large onion
- 5 small garlic cloves or 1 elephant garlic clove
- 1 tbsp. salt
- 8 cups water
Since this recipe is for chicken broth, chicken is the key and most important ingredient. Choose quality chicken and include both the meat, drippings (if you’re using a carcass) and fat during the cooking process. Don’t worry, you’re going to eventually strain all of the fat, gristle and bones out.
In a large stew pot, add the water, salt and chicken. Turn the burner on high until the water begins to boil. While waiting for the mixture to boil, cut the vegetables up into chunks. Once the mixture begins to boil, turn the burner down to medium high and boil for 10 minutes. Add the vegetable chunks and boil for an additional 10 minutes. Turn the burner down to medium low and boil for 20-25 minutes. Strain out the chunks of chicken and vegetables to reveal a rich, healthy chicken broth. That’s it!
You should end up with roughly 6 cups of concentrated broth. Since it’s concentrated, you can use it on a 1:1 ratio with water. I usually freeze the remaining broth in 1/2 cup increments.
When you’re ready to use a frozen portion, either take it out of the freezer and let sit on the counter to defrost or add to 1/2 cup hot water and warm in a pot. If your recipe calls for 2 cups broth and you’ve saved your broth in 1/2 cup increments, take out 2 and add them to 1 cup water.
This is a fantastic broth for making homemade chicken noodle soup in a hurry. Though, you don’t really need to use it, because making a broth with the chicken you’ll be using in the soup is super easy! I’ll show you how in a future post!
Let’s be cooking buddies! 👩🍳
Food Crush Cooking Connection 