The Only Chicken Stock Recipe You’ll Ever Need
Made from a collection of chicken and vegetable scraps, this chicken stock is as economical as it is wholesomely delicious. The rich, layered flavors make the perfect base for a wide variety of dishes ranging from rice to soups to chicken pot pie. Make it with leftover roast chicken carcasses or raw chicken bones (both work fabulously) but be warned, once you make your own homemade chicken stock you’ll wonder why you ever bothered to buy it from the store.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 hours
- Total Time: 4 1/4 hours
- Yield: 10 cups 1x
- Category: Soup
- Method: Stove
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
Scale
- 1 gallon bag vegetable scraps
- 1 whole roast chicken carcass or 1 raw chicken spine and wings*
- 12 1/2 cups water
*Feel free to add more chicken meat and bones, this is just a minimum.
Instructions
- Place vegetable scraps and chicken in large dutch oven or stock pot. Cover with water and simmer for 4 hours over low heat.
- Remove mixture from heat and strain out liquid using a fine mesh colander.
- Store liquid in airtight container for up to 4 days in refrigerator or up to 3 months in freezer until ready to use.
Notes
- Raw vs Cooked Chicken – Raw and cooked chicken both work wonderfully for making stock so use what you have. If you spatchcock a chicken, keep the raw spine and wings – if you roast a whole chicken, keep the leftover carcass and use that.
- Bones or No Bones – While both cooked and raw chicken work to make stock, you definitely want to include the bones! The bones provide the collagen that breaks down into gelatin which is responsible for giving stock its rich thickness. Omit the bones and you’ll end up making chicken broth instead of stock.
- What vegetables should I use? – Whatever you’ve got! Lots of people avoid leafy greens and cruciferous or starchy vegetables because they can make your stock cloudy or bitter. My philosophy is that so long as a vegetable scrap isn’t toxic (think tomato stems and leaves), into the stock pot it goes!
- Don’t have a fine mesh colander? – Me either so instead I use a coffee filter. Check out my vegetable stock recipe for a picture of my setup.
- What about salt? – Add salt if you like but I prefer to hold off until I’m making the final dish.
Keywords: Chicken Stock Recipe, Chicken Stock, Chicken Broth