Chicken Soup Stock
10 cups
5 minutes
2 hours
This stock is the basis for almost all of the soups that I make. It is easy, economical and once you make your own stock, I doubt you will ever go back to store bought.
I have two bags in my freezer. One for veggie scraps, and one for chicken bones. Whenever I make a salad, or slice up brussels sprouts or green beans or cauliflower, I through the scraps in the veggie scrap bag. This includes onion peels, garlic paper, carrot ends and peels, mushroom stems, celery leaves, stems for parsley, ciantro, thyme, rosemary. Just throw it all in the bag and wait for it to accumulate.
I always buy a whole chicken - I never buy that white pasty chicken breast on the styrofoam tray. Precut chicken is more expensive, worse for the environment, and much less tasty than chicken cooked on the bone. And .... when you buy a whole chicken, you also get to keep the bones to make stock!!!!!. If you don't feel comforatable chopping up a chicken, give it to the butcher at the grocery store, they will cut it up for you.
Whenever I cook chicken, I cook it on the bone and then remove the bones before serving. The bones go in the bone bag in the freezer just waiting to for stock day.
Ingredients
Bag of veggie scraps
bag of chicken bones
8-10 cups of water
1-2 Bay Leaves
salt & pepper to taste
Directions
put the veggie scraps and the chicken bones in a large stock pot
fill the pot with water add the bay leaf and cook on stovetop with medium heat
keep the pot at a low boil and add water as the level drops.
Let it cook for an hour or two, adding water as needed.
Remove from heat and cool.
Season with salt and pepper to taste
Once cool, strain the stock in to another stock pot to remove the bones and veggie scraps.
I freeze the stock in 2 cup souper cubes. And once frozen, vacuseal them so they are ready whenever I want to make soup
