When I used to hear Ina Garten from Barefoot Contessa say that she prefers to use homemade chicken stock in her recipes, I wondered if she wasn’t being a little over the top.  Really?  Why make your own stock when it’s canned up nicely and readily available in the grocery store?

THEN, one Sunday last year our church had purchased about six rotisserie chickens from Sam’s Club for a gathering after the service.  When the meal was finished and I looked at all those carcasses left with some meat still lingering on the bones, I decided to take them home and try my hand at making stock.

The result?  It was so flavorful, so nicely seasoned and made so much that I have not gone back to the store brands since!  It takes a little while to cook, but there is nothing hard about it!

The benefit?  You can season it to your taste.  No more salt overload.  One of my roasted chicken recipes cooks with lemon inside the cavity.  I throw that in the stock too, and love the little lemon zing it gives the stock!  It’s also cost-effective!  It costs pennies to make of something that would’ve ended up in your trash can!

The process:

Ingredients:

• Chicken Carcass – leave any meat leftover on the bones
• Large onion, peeled, cut in half
• 2 large carrots, peeled, cut in large pieces
• 2 Celery Stalks, cut in large pieces
• Rosemary sprigs
• Thyme
• Salt, pepper
• Water

Place the carcass of the chicken in a large stock pot.  Add onion, celery, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper.  Add enough water to cover by an excess of two inches.  Bring it to a boil.  Cover and turn to simmer, for 2 hours.  Check occasionally to see it has enough water.

 

 

Remove pot from stove and place a strainer over a large bowl.  Pour liquid into the strainer.  I pick through the bones and remove any meat to use for pot pie or some dish like that and toss all the rest of the bones and veggies.

Allow stock to cool a little.  Rather than canning my stock, I freeze it. Here’s how I do that:

I place a ziplock back into a one cup measuring cup and then using a funnel, I ladle in the stock.  After zipping the bag shut, I lay it flat and place the small bags into a gallon size bag just in case anything leaks.  I take out about three cups at a time to thaw and place in a mason jar to keep in the refrigerator so it will be ready to use.

There are so many uses for Chicken stock, like gravy!

 

The sauce for Chicken pot pie requires chicken stock.  Homemade soups are so good with this homemade stock!  Using chicken stock instead of water for rice or couscous makes it really flavorful! (Have I used the word “stock” enough?!)

It only makes sense if you have a chicken carcass to use it to make stock rather than tossing it into the trash can!!!  I hope you’ll give this a try!  If you can boil water, you can make STOCK!

With love from my country kitchen,