So last time I had a chicken carcass I made soup out of it. I boiled the bones and left over meat for broth and added celery, carrots, potato, and corn, I think.
It tasted good, but not terrific.
Does anyone have any suggestions to help make the next batch better? Maybe some species? Other veggies?
Simmer (not boil) bones with parsnip, dill, garlic, parsley, carrot, celery. Once you have a good broth (bones should be soft having given up their gelatin) remove bones and veggies.
Dice carrots, celery and another veggies you like. Simmer in broth and adjust seasonings (salt, pepper) etc for about 30 min. You can sauté veggies first in a little oil and dust with flour before simmering. This will thicken the soup. If you have time, chill broth overnight before making soup. You can remove solid fat layer before making soup.
I add some Sazon Goya. It adds a nice flavor and a pretty color.
Here’s one link, but you can get it just about anywhere.
Onions are a must! Also, bay leaf.
You need to start with a nice fatty chicken and reduce the broth a great deal to intensify the flavor, or do what is commonly done and add chicken base or bullion to increase the flavor. Make sure to get some dark meat in their, it’s got the fat and the flavor. It also needs greens, parsley, cilantro, carrot tops, something with just a little touch bitterness or tang to play against the chicken flavor. Sage and thyme are common ingredients in poultry seasoning that will help, people are accustomed to those seasonings used with chicken and it helps invoke memories of past chicken dishes. Pepper is important in that regard also. Noodle, rice, potatoes, or dumplings are good flavor carriers to include. And let’s not forget the onion, and garlic wouldn’t hurt either.
Roast the bones first. 350 degrees for 90 minutes. Use more than 1 carcass if you have it. And break them up before you start making stock with them (you don’t have to smash them, but just enough to expose some of the marrow).
This, especially the more than one chicken part (or add more chicken parts) and de-glaze the hell out of the roasting pan, if the pan ain’t clean it ain’t properly de-glazed.
You can always water down a stock that’s too strong, but you can’t make weak stock into good soup.
CMC fnord!
Lots of onion in my chicken soup. A dash of garlic, then salt and pepper, and I like to put in a little poultry seasoning or sage. The veggies are sauteed celery and carrots.
Homemade chicken soup is divine.
Most of my suggestions for doing it right have already been made, so I’ll put in my tricks for fixing it when it turns out weak. Any one of these or a combination will “beef up” the broth if it’s bland:
add a few drops of dark sesame oil
put 2-3 cups of sweet sherry -or- Reisling in a saucepan and simmer until reduced by at least half. Add it to the broth.
chop some onions very fine and caramelize them slowly over low heat. Garlic is good in there too.
once or twice a year I just fill my crock pot with chopped onions with a splash of sherry or reisling and a few cloves of garlic then leave it overnight. It turns into a brown goopy jam that adds divine flavor to anything. I’d just add a dose of that. (Divide into 1/4 cup servings and freeze in plastic baggies. Great for rescuing stews or soups or just simmer with a bit of cream and Parmesan for a great pasta sauce.)
Celery salt. It adds a flavor all its own, I can only describe as “robust-ness.”
a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste. Not enough to make it pink, but just enough to add acid and thicken the broth a bit. Add this after you are finished reducing the broth.
a tiny sprinkling of toasted paprika. I mean tiny. Anything more than a scrid will make the broth taste like you poured liquid smoke into it. But if you just waft the bottle top around near the broth it will come across darker and more robust.
Hope that helps!
I really dislike poultry seasoning (I can’t stand sage), but add rosemary and sometimes thyme. I’m going to try your onion jam, TruCelt.
Definitely adding that onion jam to my list. Thank you!
The thing that most stands out for the in the OP is that it sounds like you used the same meat for the stock as ended up in the soup. In my experience, once I’ve simmered my carcasses (with whatever clinging leftover meat is attached) for several hours to make stock, the meat is spent. It’s given all the flavor it’s got to give, and what’s left is dry and more like sawdust than food.
I do make a sherried chicken by simmering a whole chicken for about 45 minutes and then pulling the meat off the bones and tossing it back in, but then it gets seasoned with onions and mushrooms and sherry and cream to boost the flavor of the broth. It’s not broth that stands up on it’s own for soup.
So that’s my suggestion: save up a couple of carcasses with left over meat in the freezer and make your stock out of those (we even save the bones from fried chicken after we’re done eating them - I figure whatever bacteria is on them is killed in the stock making process, and so far we’re not dead). Then strain and toss all the solids and use fresh meat and fresh vegetables for the soup.
I use a bag of frozen veggie scraps in the stock instead of wasting whole veg - always carrot peelings and ends, celery ends, onion ends, and often other stuff makes its way in as well. A couple of egg shells boost the calcium content of stock, and just a bit of acid like a splash of vinegar helps move more of the calcium from the bones into the broth. Don’t add citrus, though. I’ve tried lobbing spent lime or lemon halves into the stockpot, and the bitter pith ruins the whole stock. Sadness. I had to dump 20 quarts of stock once, for two lousy little lime halves. 
For seasonings, usually I use salt - lots of salt - peppercorns, bay leaf, allspice and then I sing “Scarborough Faire” as I toss in some parsley, sage - pause to decide if rosemary would be too overwhelming and add just a little bit anyhow - and thyme. Then when it’s simmered and strained, I usually add more salt, and if it’s blah, a little MSG. Judge if you like, but our palates are well trained to like MSG, and most pros use it in stock. I ain’t too proud.
I think sticking with Gallus domesticus in chicken soup is a good plan. Adding other species of animals intentionally is unnecessary. Although the occasional insect may fly in, we hope not enough to change the flavor profile. You can feel more free to experiment with plant species
Be careful with this . . . let’s just say that Kentucky Fried Chicken bones chicken soup sounds better than it tastes :smack:!
CMC fnord!
lol. Well, they do use very young chickens, so there’s not a whole lotta flavor going on. When I add them to a stewing chicken or capon carcass, they’re okay. (I do remove the breading first. Just toss 'em in a colander and run water over them with the sprayer.)
Black peppercorns, star anise, cardamom pod, several bay leaves. Couple of stalks of celery, an onion, couple of carrots.
But I never use already cooked bones. I buy all my chicken on the bones, and cut it off myself. I freeze the bones until I have two large pots full, then I make stock.
I will throw a small can of diced tomatoes in when I’m simmering the bones. I feel like the lower pH helps extract flavor from the bones. Yes to the bay leaves and onions as well.
:smack::eek:
Heh nice catch.
Thanks for all the suggestions! I got green onions. Are they ok or do I need the big ones?
Green onions are good, but I literally don’t think I’ve ever made chicken soup without a white or yellow onion. If you’re roasting your chicken, you could roast the tougher veggies with it, too (onion, carrots, celery, parsnips).
My grocery store sells chicken bones for soup, so if you have just one carcass, buy some extras and add to the mix. Roasting beforehand helps a lot, but I’ve never roasted for more than 30 minutes. Salt is key. Don’t go overboard, but without enough salt, it’s going to taste blah.
I’ve always had problems making chicken soup, so I appreciate the advice. I used to make big batches of the blandest soup that was good for filling you up, but tasted so BLAH. I think I read in something like America’s Test Kitchen to get a really tasty stock for a quick soup you have to sacrifice one whole chicken and boil it down to an essence, and then another chicken, veg, etc. to actually make the soup. Chicken soup is bland and needs seasoning, a spoonful of Better Than Bouillion - something… I have had good results in cooking thighs in chicken broth with parsley, herbs, carrots, celery, onion - all the usual suspects. In a small batch. Oh, and cooking rice/potatoes/noodles separately, and throwing a handful of them in at the very end, for a minute. Otherwise you will be like the sad younger Salinqmind and have a huge pot of chicken soup full of noodles.