Thursday, September 18, 2008

Soup Stock

Making your own soup stock is so ridiculously easy, I wonder why I've been throwing out my meat bones all these years. It's much healthier for you too!

Basic recipe (adapt to the amount of bones you have):

Chicken carcass (from 3-4 lb chicken)
6 c. water
1 onion, sliced in half
3 big carrots, in chunks
1 -2 stalks celery, in chunks
salt and pepper to taste.

Toss it all in a pot. Bring to boil, then let simmer for an hour or so. Let it cool for 15-20 minutes, then pour through strainer into a bowl. Discard all that gross stuff, and keep the broth. If you want to skim off fat, put it in the fridge, and skim it off after the fat rises to the top.

You can do this with chicken drumsticks, turkey carcass, beef roast/steak bones, etc.

If I don't have time to make stock from leftover bones right away, I just toss the bones in the freezer. Then when you make the stock, you can just pour the frozen carcass right into the soup pot.

Use the chicken stock right away to make soup, or you can refrigerate it or freeze it for later use.

2 comments:

CompleteLee Blogger said...

I wish I had known you were throwing away bones! I woulda told ya!

Don't forget that the leaves of the celery are very good chopped up in the stock too.

And, if you ever get a rotisserie (sp?) chicken from the grocery store, those bones work fine for soup stock too. I used to throw those away, but...duh!

Mom of 7 said...

Heehee... Actually I didn't even ever buy that many meats with bones in them in the first place! But I've started to more often just so I can make stock!

Thanks for the celery tip!