For the entire month of September, I’ll be participating in the SNAP Challenge and attempting to eat on $4.50 per day. Read more here.
For week 4 of the SNAP Challenge, I purchased a rotisserie chicken from which I planned to make a few different meals. Rotisserie chickens are probably one of the most awesome “convenience” items because they are useful for such a wide range of dishes. Once the meat is pulled from the bone it can be use to make just about anything from sandwiches to casseroles, salads, or soups. What’s left over after you pull off all the meat can be used, too! The remaining bone, cartilage, fat, and bits of skin are filled with flavor and nutrients that can be made into the most wonderfully magical chicken broth.
I’ve made homemade chicken broth before using the stove top and it’s unbelievably easy. If you go one step further and use a slow cooker, it’s nearly effortless. All you need is a chicken carcass, a couple vegetables, some herbs, and water. Pop it all into a slow cooker, turn it on, and come back later to find all the work is done for you. Awesome, right?
This time I happened to have some celery, carrots, onions, and parsley on hand because I was going to make chicken noodle soup with them later, but you can make this broth practically cost free by saving your vegetable scraps throughout the month and using them to the flavor the broth instead of the whole vegetables. What do I mean by vegetable scraps? Well, onion and carrot peels, celery leaves, stems from parsley and other herbs, or anything that you’d usually cut off from vegetables and throw away. Cleaning is key, though. You don’t want a sandy broth, so make sure to wash your scraps well (or just wash the whole vegetable well before cutting off the scraps) and don’t save anything that looks rotten or moldy.
The broth is customizable, but onion, carrots, and celery are the magic trio. Garlic is good, too, but you want to go light so that it doesn’t over power the broth. Be careful with other vegetables, as they may change the color or cause odors in the broth (beets, obviously, will turn the broth red and any cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli or cauliflower, will give it a sulfurous smell). For herbs, I like to keep it simple with parsley, bay leaf, and black pepper. You can experiment and customize this to your liking, too (a little thyme or rosemary might be nice).
So, here it is… The incredibly simple step by step process of making chicken broth in a slow cooker:
How To: Slow Cooker Chicken Broth
Step One: Get yourself a chicken carcass. I used the leftover bits of my grocery store rotisserie chicken.
Step Two: Add the chicken carcass, some vegetables, and herbs to a large slow cooker (I think mine is a 5 or 7 quart slow cooker). I used one stalk of celery, two carrots, a handful of parsley, two bay leaves, some freshly cracked pepper, and a sprinkle of dried onion flakes (because I only had one onion left and was saving that for the actual chicken soup).
Step Three: Add water. I filled up my slow cooker to the top, which was about 10 cups. There’s no real rule for how much water here, so don’t fret if you can only fit six cups or add up to 12. But, I’d try to add as much water as possible. There’s a lot of flavor in them bones, so don’t let it go to waste.
Step Four: Cover the slow cooker, turn it on to high, and let it go for at least six hours. I was short on time, so I had to finish it at 6, but if you let it go longer, the flavor will get deeper. The beauty of the long, slow cooking process is that all of that cartilage breaks down and adds body to the broth. NOM.
Step Five: Use a slotted spoon to remove the large pieces. Check to see if there is still any meat clinging to the bones, and if there is, you can pick it off and save it. If cooked long enough, the vegetables will have nearly disintegrated into the broth, but because I had to cook mine for a fairly short amount of time they were still whole. I picked those vegetables out and saved them for my chicken soup!
Lastly, you’ll want to strain out the sediment. You can do this with a wire mesh strainer (over a bowl or pot to catch the liquid) or with a colander lined with cheese cloth (again, over a bowl or pot).
Salt the broth if desired, or you can leave it unsalted and just salt whatever dish you’re using the broth in later. Store the broth in the refrigerator for up to a week or in the freezer for several weeks. If freezing, cool the broth completely in the refrigerator first, then transfer to the freezer. I like to freeze my broth in heavy duty zip top freezer bags laying flat, so they are stackable and don’t take up much space in the freezer. (This is actually a photo from my stove top chicken broth. I was too busy packing up for the move to take photos of the slow cooker broth, but it looked exactly the same!)
I know a lot of you make your own broth at home, so how about sharing your favorite add-ins and tips? Leave a comment below! :D
I let my broth cool, and then place it in a wide mouthed bowl over night in the fridge. The fat will solidify and can be scraped off before decanting into storage containers.
We love to make homemade chicken broth! It’s so much better than buying it at the store and it’s so easy to make!
I do my broth the same way as you, but I always roast the bones first. Just put in 350 degree oven and roast until golden brown. I also put a splash of apple cider vinegar in the pot to draw out the calcium. Roasting the bones really ups the flavor and makes the broth golden brown. I have also just started turning finished broth into homemade boullion – easy and takes up so much less space to store. http://www.simplebites.net/homemade-bouillon-cubes/
Awesome, thanks for the link!
You should be cooling your broth on the counter before putting into the fridge or freezer.
Most new freezers and fridges can handle warm items being put in them just fine.
It’s a recommendation being made now to chill the broth or warm food as fast as possible to avoid bacterial growth.
I pressure.can mine into pint and quart jars. Saves me a ton Of room In The freezer
I make chicken broth any time I have leftover bones of any sort. If I only have a few (say from roasting a few thighs or whole chicken breasts) I pop the bones in a freezer bag and keep adding until I have around a chicken’s worth, then make up a batch. I freeze the broth in 2 and 4 cup containers so I have the right amounts to make soup or add to recipes. It’s so much better than canned or concentrate, and essentially free!
That’s my favorite way to make chicken broth! I let it go overnight, and then strain out the disintegrated caracass the next day. I don’t usually add much by way of vegetable, but if I do it’s usually onion skins, which make the broth more of the lovely yellow color we usually associate with chicken broth. My crockpot holds 8 cups of water once I add the chicken, which is enough for 2 recipes of soup for my family–one the day I make the broth, and another later, since I freeze the remainder.
I like to add a couple of parmesan rinds to my broth as it cooks, or adding a few large chunks of ginger makes for great soup for sick days
I love both of those ideas! Thanks for sharing!
I also save my parmesan rinds to put in my soup stock! It really adds an amazing flavor.
Adding a little bit of lemon juice or vinegar makes the chicken bones release more calcium into your broth.
I always add some apple cider vinegar when making my chicken stock as I’ve read that it helps to draw the calcium out of the bones for a healthier stock. Can’t make stock too often as I only have a small freezer, the one above my fridge.
I always intend to make chicken broth with the bones when I make a whole chicken but I just never do it. Throwing it all in the slowcooker though sounds like it’s acheivable. Maybe I’ll do it this time. I have some good bones in the fridge right now.
Sarah
thesloppyperfectionist.blogspot.com
Quick question, my grocery store doesn’t allow the purchase of hot food, so I wouldn’t be able to buy a rotisserie chicken. I’m also doing the SNAP challenge, and the DHS website I looked at says no hot food. Does your grocery store accept the food stamps for foods like that?
I made your Blueberry Banana Oatmeal Bake as part of our challenge today, and it was a huge hit! Enough serves for 6 with plain Greek Yogurt, it was heavenly!
That was something I overlooked when shopping for this week’s SNAP challenge. But after posting the last recipe using the rotisserie chicken, a lot of readers chimed in to say that in many places you can buy rotisserie chicken with food stamps as long as it’s chilled. Many stores sell the previous day’s rotisserie chickens chilled and at a discounted price. If you can’t find that in your area, you can try roasting your own whole chicken, which is actually pretty easy (you just need to have some free time). Here is a link to how to roast your own chicken: How to Roast the Perfect Chicken.
Bone-in chicken is cheaper, and better-tasting, than boneless/skinless. I cut the meat off the bones if I’m doing a stir fry or whatever and freeze the bones/skin until I have a full freezer bag. Rotisserie carcasses too. If you’re using those, they’re usually salty, so I don’t add any salt. I’ve read about roasting the bones first for added flavor, but I haven’t tried that yet.
I’ve roasted bones for both chicken and beef broth using the recipes from 80s chef “frugal gourmet”. You use chicken neck bones and the beef bones that the meat counters keep for dogs, I think their thigh bones, almost bare.
Roast for 30-45 minutes on a baking sheet and they make the most beautiful broth.
Agreed – roasting the bones and also the onion and carrot (in large chunks) for about 40 min at 400F gives the broth gorgeous colour and some caramelized flavour. Yum.
I can usually get two batches of broth out of one batch of bones in my slow cooker. The second time, I add more vegetables (I generally dispose of most of the old vegetables, but don’t really worry about getting every last bit out) and cook it for about twice as long as I did the first time (the slow cooker is usually going overnight in that case), but the second batch of broth usually is as flavorful (and sets up as well into that wonderful thick jelly that I like to see in my homemade broth) as the first.
Fun facts about homemade chicken broth:
In the slow cooker, cooking it on “high” can cause the broth to go cloudy. I prefer to do mine on “low,” because the finished broth looks nicer. ;)
I also freeze my broth in ice cube trays! By my measure, 1 ice cube = 1/8th of a cup (your trays may vary). I store them all in a big gallon ziplock bag and can just pop 2-4 into a pan to flavor up a stir fry or cook some veggies. It’s less wasteful than using up and having to throw out a bunch of baggies, too.