Easy Homemade Chicken Broth

Bone Broth: my simple method to making and conserving homemade chicken broth

Good evening mommies!

The following is a basic bone broth recipe that is essential to so many of my dishes. I feel silly even calling it a recipe because it is so simple. Its more of a method I use to make broth in the most conservative and convenient way possible. If you're like me, and hate to throw any food away, you will appreciate this method. I must have been an Indian in my past life because I get such a kick from using every little scrap from any food I eat. I use this recipe mainly for chicken broth but you can make other kinds of broth if you prefer. 

What you will need:

• freezer safe containers (I like 2 cup size that are crack resistant and microwave safe)
• freezer safe ziplock bags
• a large crock pot
• water
• ice cube tray (optional)
• bones and/or carcass (whatever type of broth you want to make)

Preparation

Anytime you are cooking chicken (or any meat with bones) conserve the bones, cartilage, skin, or whatever other uneaten parts you may have. Place in a ziplock bag and store in your freezer until you are ready to make broth. If you only have a little, you might want to add to the bag until you acquire enough to fill your crockpot. You can even save the carcass from a store bought roasted chicken or even from your thanksgiving turkey! 

Instructions

When you are ready to make broth just throw all of the contents from your ziplock bag into your crockpot and fill the rest with water, being careful not to overfill. Set the heat to low and let cook for at least 8 hours. I usually throw mine in before bed and then turn it off in the morning. The longer it cooks, the more flavor you will get out of the bones. Ive even heard of people reusing bones but Ive never tried it. One batch of broth from a carcass is enough for me! 

Let your broth cool and then pour into your freezer containers. I like to to make note of the container size so I know about how much broth they hold. You can pre-measure the broth and then label your containers but its much easier to just do 2-3 cup sizes. They are also much quicker to defrost. You can also pour some broth into ice cube trays for recipes that only require a small amount of broth. Once frozen solid just transfer the cubes to a ziplock bag. They come in very handy!

To defrost you can set your microwave to a defrost setting and run for about 15minutes. The times will vary so experiment with your microwave. I usually defrost for 18 min and then hit it at regular power for another minute. You can also defrost the broth stovetop after popping it out of the container, I just find the microwave to be the quickest and easiest way. 

Well there you go! Now you can always have a freezer stocked with homemade chicken broth at your convenience. Soooo much better than spending money on store bought broth that contains who knows what topped with loads of sodium. 

Vera