homemade chicken stock

We’ve been huge fans of homemade chicken stock in this house. It’s simple to make, easy to freeze, and full of minerals and nutrients that you cannot get from store-bought stocks. Don’t be intimated by stock, I promise if I can do it, you can too.
Normally I hold off on making stock until I have enough bones and vegetables to make two pots (I have a bag in the freezer for this). If you are going to go through the process, why not just double it? I use filtered water from our Berkey (I eye ball this and will add more water if needed).

How to make homemade chicken stock

  • Round up plenty of bones (I typically add a carcass per pot), meat+fat is fine
  • Vegetable scraps, including onions, carrots, celery, leeks, broccoli (hard lesson learned, do not add bell peppers). I rarely buy vegetables for stock, just use whatever is going bad or the last bit that you’d rarely use in a recipe.
  • Enough water to cover bones & vegetables
  • 10 whole peppercorns
  • Fresh parsley (about a 1/4 cup)
  • I don’t add salt to my stock, as I’d rather be able to control that when I use the stock later on in recipes.

Place all ingredients into pot, bring to a boil, then simmer for 4-8 hours (the longer the better, to release all the yummy nutrients from the bones). Turn off and allow to come to room temperature (most times I allow it to stay on the stove overnight covered with a lid). I then strain it once through a colander, then through cheese cloth to remove all the extra bits. From there, I either place the stock directly into freezer baggies (about 2 cups in each) or into jars to be used that week. It will keep up to a year, though we never get to that point.

Homemade chicken stock is perfect for making rice (use half stock, half water), in soups & stews and really any recipe that calls for liquid. I know there are people on the interwebs that drink a cup of homemade stock a day for the added nutrients. When Anthony had a major UC flareup in April, he depleted our entire freezer by only drinking stock for a week.

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