Thanks to a meeting at work and the 35 people who attended I was able to make roster chicken stock. I normally only make stock from beef or deer bones because I rarely have more than a few bones at a time when we eat chicken. But with the remains of 5 roaster chickens it was time for a winter’s worth of chicken broth.
Everyone who cooks knows that we should all make our own Bone Broth or Chicken Stock and the benefits that come from taking the time to do it. Not only does simple homemade chicken stock make cooking easier, having only to thaw it to make a delicious sauce or base for soups it also gives the body a nutrient rich base to draw from.
I personally make my stock not only with bones but left over meat and vegetables.I kind of clean out the refrigerator when doing this kind of cooking… knowing that everything I put into the stock will add flavor and nutrition. In this case I had 6 small carrots, 1 large onion, 6 stalks celery, and about a half of a head of cabbage and 5 carcases of roster chickens. I added enough water to the chicken bones to cover and topped then with 3 more inches of water. I put the vegetables in and added 3 tablespoons salt, 4 bay leaves and 3 teaspoons Rosemary and simmered the mixture for 3 hours.Bone Broth is usually cooked for up to 12 hours to the point where the bones are brittle.
Chicken stock.. with celery, onion, carrots and cabbage.
After letting the stock cool for over an hour I began the long process of straining the stock. I first pulled out the vegetables. I have a ladle style strainer for this kind of work. Then poured the remaining broth through a strainer into several bowls. This help removes the rosemary and bay leaves and the smaller bones and random meat chucks. I covered the stock and placed three bowls of stock in my refrigerator to finish cooling and letting the chick fat that raised to the top. Around 24 hours later I took the stock out and removed the chicken fat that had raised to the top and hardened. Leaving the gelatin that forms from boiling the bones in the stock… this is the natural collagen that is so good for our health and healing. Then warmed the stock and mixed the jelly back into the broth and when just warm poured into freezer containers.
30 cups of homemade chicken stock from 5 roster chicken carcasses.
I ended up with 6 containers of stock with each container holding 5 cups of broth. The broth will remain fresh for up to 6 months. The first time the weather cools I am sure Christopher and I will be making chicken soup or chicken gravy made with this homemade broth.Knowing that we are eating food that not only tastes good but is good for you.
West Virginia Mountain Mama 
Wonderful idea. You’ll get a lot of good soups and gravies from that.
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That looks simply delish. Chicken and rice soup has been on my mind for several days. Thanks for posting
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love chicken and rice!
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I’ve posted about this on my blog as well. Nothing better than making your own stocks!! Tina
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It is such a simple skill that is sometimes lost! Keep sharing !
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I make small batches in the crock pot when we have just one roasted chicken. Also, I add a splash of cider vinegar to help extract the minerals and soften the bones.
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Jody If only we ate more chicken… my husband is not a chicken eater and when I do make chicken I often buy it with out the bones… so this was a real treat for me… lots and lots of bones!
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I wish I could say we do this every time we cook up a chicken, but it just doesn’t work time-wise for me every time.
However, we do some big time bone broth (beef) cooking up in the winter. We have a huge stockpot that we use, but it’s so hard to cool the broth down in the fridge. That’s why we wait until winter so we can set the whole thing outside to cool more quickly (without overheating the contents of the fridge). Instead of freezing it, we can it– a space issue for us.
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Jody thanks for reminding me that stock can be canned. I would have done that if I had less freezer space…. at this time of the year it is almost empty, waiting on hunting season. I can almost all of our garden vegetables and about half the fall meats but forgot about stock!
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It’s a lot of work, but you’re paying it forward to yourself. When you use that in January, you’re going to feel very good about having done this.
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I love making my own stock. I usually have bags of bones from pork, beef and chicken all in the freezer waiting until there’s enough to make a huge pot of stock.
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Hi Jolynn, your stock looks delicious. I’m not sure how you store your stock, but I just thought I’d share an easy I store mine- I use Glad freezer bags (the blue ones work good), fill them 3/4 of the way and lay them laying flat down on a freezer shelf or rack and stack them on top of each other, usually 3-4 stack well. Once they freeze, they freeze nice and square and flat. They’re all frozen at the same shape and I can stack them and organize them so easily in the freezer, they take up less room.
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I have done that with soup and stew and it worked well as I have a chest freezer I was hoping to try some containers that will not slide around the bottom of my freezer when we have lots of stacks of food.. will let you know what I think of the containers VS the bags this fall when my freezer is full
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