Homemade Chicken Broth from your Sunday Roast Chicken!
For my anonymous posting friend whom I inspired to make a roast chicken, here is the chicken broth recipe. Thank you for writing and I’m so proud of you for giving it a go. See?! Not that hard, right? Who knew?
Above you see a nice roast chicken. This one was roasted with fresh rosemary, lemons and onions. I described the “how to” for roasting a chicken in a former post.
This post is for how to make chicken broth out of the carcass. It’s even easier than you think.
This takes about two hours and, depending how much water/chicken you end up with, makes about a half a gallon or more of chicken broth (perfect for chicken noodle soup!)
Ingredients:
- 1 freshly cooked chicken carcass
- 1 whole onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 2 celery stalks, chopped
- 1 Tbsp fresh rosemary sprig
- 1 lemon, sliced (optional)
- 1 Tbsp salt
- 1 Tbsp fresh ground pepper
Directions:
- Place the chicken carcass in a large, deep pot and cover just above the top of the chicken with water
- Add the vegetables, herbs and spices
- Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer covered for about two hours or so until all the meat falls off the bones.
- Place a colander over a large bowl, NOT THE SINK (I started to make that mistake and my hubby reminded me to blog about it!) strain the liquid from the pot.
- Skim the fat off the liquid and set aside to cool
- Pick through the remains of the veggies and chicken bones in the colander to salvage any good pieces of chicken left over.
- Discard the rest (when you make soup later, use freshly chopped veggies)
- Place the broth and/or chicken in an airtight container. It can be frozen or last in the refrigerator for about two weeks.
*Use the broth in your favorite recipes that call for broth. Coming soon…Chicken Tortilla Soup and Chicken Noodle Soup!
I’ve been making broth like this since living on a budget in college and learning that roasting a chicken like my gramma did was so easy, cheap, impressive to guests, and delicious. Now I keep the carcass and bones from home-roasted birds, along with those from the occasional grocery-store rotisserie bird. Save em in a good freezer bag and when you have several pounds, throw in a pot with veggies (old ones and trimmings are fine) and herbs. Breaking the bones makes a richer broth. However, skimming the fat is unnecessary: it wont raise the fat content of the broth itself if you remove it just before use, it serves to seal the broth for a much longer life in the fridge, denying air contact which spoils the broth (just like wax in old-fashioned canning), prevents freezer-odors from penetrating, and can be used as a great cooking-fat, as Jewish cooks know well.