How to Make Chicken Stock

Ingredients

• leftover chicken scraps or chicken carcasses
• carrots
• celery
• onion
• water
• chicken soup base

Directions

To make chicken stock, start with scraps of chicken or chicken carcasses, which I freeze until I’m ready to use them. (Save them up in the freezer until you have enough to make a big batch of stock.)You also need onions, celery, and carrots. If you have any veggies that are past their prime, this is the perfect use for them.If you’re going to make stock often, you might want to invest in a tool called a stock skimmer (affiliate link). It’s used for skimming off the foam from stock while it’s cooking. I also use it to scoop out the cooked vegetables when I’m discarding them.Put the chicken scraps, onions, celery, and carrots in a huge stock pot with water, as much as your pot will hold.Add some Better than Bouillon Roasted Chicken Base (affiliate link) or another type of chicken base if you want to bump up the flavor.Let it cook all day at a very low simmer, adding water whenever it gets low.After the stock has cooked all day (or at least for a few hours, I usually reduce it by about 1/3 before I scoop out the vegetables and discard them.When you’re through cooking it, remove the meat and veggies and strain the stock somehow. I use a yogurt strainer and a fat separator, which removes the fat by taking the liquid off the bottom. Any fine strainer will work.You can also remove the fat by cooling the stock in the fridge and then scraping the fat off the top.Store extra chicken stock in the freezer, where it will stay good for months and months.