Making Chicken Broth

Food is becoming more and more expensive, and with the addition of 13 people to my family (a story for another time) in the past year, this Nona has become even more focused than I already was on saving money. One of the ways that I am doing that is by making my own broths for use in my cooking.

Do you make your own broth? It's so easy! And so much cheaper than buying it from the store!

To start, when you're making other recipes and you're using celery, onions, and carrots, don't throw those peels and ends away. Put them in a quart size ziplock bag and put it in your freezer, and just keep adding to that bag in your freezer. You can use those scraps for all kinds of broths, etc., so don't throw them away! You can use any kind of ziplock bag, but I, personally, like the reusable ones like this. If you want to make broth but don't have a bag of those vegetable scraps already, you can also use cleaned and scrubbed carrots, celery hearts/stalks, and quartered yellow onions.

Now, my absolute favorite way to make chicken broth is using a rotisserie chicken from Costco. Costco rotisserie chickens are $4.99, delicious, and I can use the meat for a couple meals and the carcass for broth. So, that $4.99 winds up having quite the bang for the buck!

You could also use the carcass from the chicken you made from my clay baker recipe or one that you made from a different recipe. The bottom line, though, is that you need a cooked chicken carcass.

So, when you're ready, you need to have -

• a stock pot (I like this one)

• the carcass from a cooked chicken without the skin or meat, picked clean, just the bones

• your bag of carrot peels, onion skins and ends, celery ends, etc., or whole carrots, celery hearts/stalks, and whole yellow onions (quartered)

• several cloves of garlic

• whole black peppercorns

• bay leaves

• water

• apple cider vinegar (optional)

Now, I'm not giving you amounts. It's one of those things where you just throw a bunch of stuff in a pot, cover it with water, and let it cook. So, that's what you do.

Put your chicken bones in the pot with all of the veggies. You don't have to peel anything, just throw in the carrots and celery, the quartered onions, and the whole unpeeled garlic cloves. Then throw in 3-4 bay leaves, a tablespoon of whole black peppercorns, and a big glug of apple cider vinegar (optional). The vinegar doesn't affect the taste, but what it does do is helps the bones to give up their collagen/gelatin and, which is really good for you!

Do. Not. Add. Salt. By not adding salt, you can use this broth for pretty much anything and season it however you like. So, as much as you're tempted to, do not add salt.

Cover everything with water up to and inch or two below the top of your pot, put the lid on and turn on the heat. I usually have the heat on high to start in order to get that water heated and starting to simmer. Once it is actively simmer, turn the heat down to low or simmer or 2 or whatever that setting is on your stove, and just let it go.

I tend to let my broth simmer for at least 24 hours. Honestly, the longer you let it simmer, the deeper and richer the flavor will be. When you decide it's ready, turn the heat off, let it cool a bit, and then strain out the everything but the broth. What you should have is a relatively clear, golden yellow broth that smells AMAZING.

Now, it should have very little fat if your chicken carcass was clean, but if you can see that it does, you can put it in jars and put in the refrigerator once it has cooled. By the next day, the fat will have solidified and you can just scoop it off the top. If you don't care about that, though, then the easiest thing to do is to ladle it into one cup silicone molds like these and (carefully) put them in the freezer. When they are frozen, you can pop them out, put them in a ziplock bag, and put that bag in the freezer. Voila! You've made your own chicken broth, and the next time you are cooking and you need a cup or two or however many of chicken broth, all you have to do is take it out of the freezer and thaw!