How do you make your Certified Organic, pastured chicken stretch out for several meals? Make rich, silky, nutrient-dense bone broth. There are so many ways to do this…let us count them.
1) Start with a whole chicken. Place it in a crock pot with 2-3 stalks roughly chopped celery, 2 carrots cut into 1-inch pieces, 1 quartered onion and 2 Bay leaves. Cover with water and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 5 hours. Shred the fall-off-the-bone tender meat and use for soup, enchiladas, tacos, pasta dishes and salads. Reserve the stock for later use.
2) Using a leftover chicken carcass from a whole roasted chicken, follow the same recipe as step 1, making sure to include the skin and fat.
3) Defrost and part 1 or more chickens and use the leftover parts (backbone, wing tips, skin and fat) to make stock with this recipe.
Don’t be afraid to stew your chicken for as long as 48 hours! The longer it cooks, the more collagen will release from the bones and the more highly concentrated the flavors will be. For longer cook times, however, we do recommend waiting to put the veggies in until there is just a couple hours of cook time left. Because stock from our chickens is so rich and flavorful, you should be able to dilute it to your taste preference and double the size of your batch. Whether you dilute or not will depend on how much water you started with, how many carcasses you used and how condensed the stock is.
Advantages to homemade chicken stock over store bought:
You can use as much or as little salt as you want.
Avoid sugar and high fructose corn syrups.
It’s basically free, since you already bought the chicken.
It tastes like chicken, as opposed to chicken-flavored water.
How to Store Homemade Stock:
Pour into ice cube trays, freeze, then transfer to zip top freezer bag to use as needed for soups or cooking grains.
Pour directly into zip top bags and freeze.
If you have a vacuum sealer, pour slightly cooled stock into bag and freeze long enough to set, then seal the bag.
Pour into Ball jars with at least 1 1/2 inches of headspace and freeze.
Pressure can it.
Frozen stock should last up to 6 months in your freezer, longer if it’s vacuum sealed. Pressure canned stock can be stored for 18 months (according to Ball).