It occurred to me the other day that I buy or make an inordinate amount of roasted chicken (it’s one of my son’s favorites), but wind up throwing out the carcass after I’m done. That’s wasting a really big part of the chicken! So, the last time I got a chicken, I picked it mostly clean and tossed the remains in the crockpot with 8 cups of water and got some of the best quality chicken stock ever.
Having done it once, I want to do it again. But I know I can probably make something even tastier by adjusting my recipe. And it doesn’t have to stop at chicken - I can use the leftover bones from other types of meat. So, anyone want to share your stock recipes? It doesn’t have to be chicken - beef, veggie - whatever. I need stocks!
As an aside, it really freaked me out to find that good-quality chicken stock is kind of gelatinous. I was so dubious about it that I called my mom and looked it up online so I could see a picture of what chicken stock should look like. Who knew?
This is the gelatin and is the key difference between delicious, wonderful, unctuous liquid chicken or cow versus the crappy salty colored water that you buy in the cans and boxes.
I don’t have a specific recipe to give you but I have some advice. When making a stock from just a carcass as opposed to a whole bird I suggest augmenting that some raw untrimmed chicken wings or a second carcass. I wouldn’t pick it too clean, that remaining meat and especially the fat and roasted skin contribute a ton of flavor. When I make it using just one cooked and cleaned carcass it’s just too bland.
Additionally put together a bouquet garni, basically a bundle of fresh herbs tied together and boiled with the stock and retrieved at the end of cooking. A sprig of thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley and bay leaves in some combination are typical, pick what you like.
Usually tossing in a whole large broken carrot, couple stalks of celery and a Spanish onion halved will contribute to the flavor nicely. Some recipes call for the veggies to be roasted first, and if you are roasting a bird anyways you could just roast the veggies under the bird and reserve them, but generally I don’t bother when I make it using old chicken or a raw whole one. The upside to roasting the aromatic veggies under the bird is that those veggies will soak up some of the chicken drippings and flavor and bring those to the stock instead of just stuck to the bottom of the pan (assuming you aren’t making gravy every time).
Also don’t be afraid to buy a jar of granulated bullion. Some chickens have less flavor than others and some stocks just end up being a little weak on the chicken flavor. Adding some bullion a dash at a time can boost a dull stock nicely. You’ll usually get plenty of gelatin and flavor from the herbs and veggies, but if that chicken flavor is a little flat some bullion will bump it up, don’t let the food snobs tell you otherwise.
I suggest saving 2 or 3 chicken carcasses and the wings at a time in the freezer with some of the skin and pan veggies. Then make a fat batch of stock all at once. Skim the fat and spume off and season to taste with salt, pepper and bullion. Freeze that stuff in disposable tupperware containers, the ones that deli meats come in these days are ideal, and portion it out for soups and sauces all winter long.
I’ve made stock using the carcasses of those rotisserie chickens they have at the grocery store, and it wasn’t that good. Something about the commercial seasonings, I guess - I dunno. But I’d personally recommend sticking to chickens you’ve roasted yourself.
I don’t bother making an herb bundle to fish out, either. I gotta strain out all the bits of chicken and vegetables anyway, right? The whole thing gets poured through a cheesecloth-lined colander or large strainer; no need to fiddle with tying the herbs.
If you have one of those big ol’ pasta pots that comes with a strainer (so you lift the strainer and lift the pasta out of the boiling water) then use that, if you’re making a big enough batch of stock. Then you can just lift the chicken bones, boiled vegetables, bay leaves etc. up, let it drip a bit, and then carry away the whole mess to the trash can.
If your stock ends up “bland” or “weak on chicken flavor” then, once everything is strained out, boil down just the stock itself a bit, to concentrate it. Stock done in a slow-cooker often has this problem, because no water evaporates away the way it does when it’s being boiled on the stovetop.
I never have issues with scum or foam when I’m making stock, so I don’t skim. The upside is that, once frozen, each container of stock gets a little disc of pure chicken schmaltz on top, since I don’t skim off any fat during the cooking. Pop that sucker off and use that instead of butter when making a roux for gravy.
I always make stock when there are bones left over after a meal. Even if the meal was a heap of chicken wings and everybody has been gnawing the bones - I figure a)we’re family and all have the same germs and b)it’s going to be boiled for an hour plus anyway.
My usual recipe is: the picked-over carcass of a roasted chicken, broken apart by hand, in a pan with a couple of bay leaves, some rosemary and sage, a whole onion cut into chunks - skin, roots, top and all (but no soil, obviously), a couple of smashed cloves of garlic and veg trimmings if available, covered with water (usually a bit over a pint), brought to the boil and simmered with the lid on for at least an hour, ideally two.
If it’s a Sunday roast, I usually try to reserve the water from boiling carrots or other veg and use this for starting the stock instead of water.
There’s a bit of a routine in our household that goes like this:
Sunday: Roast dinner with lots of veg. There will be meat and lots of real meat-juice-based gravy left over. Stock made with the bones.
Monday: toad in the hole (sausages baked in a dish of batter) with the leftover gravy.
Tuesday: risotto or soup made with the leftovers and stock.
I don’t know how important it is, but I’ve always heard don’t boil chicken stock as it ruins the velvety texture, but instead just bring it to the point where you see light cavitation bubbles. What say you, pro chefs?
I make a lot of stock. I’m canning some as I write, actually.
I never make it from just one chicken carcass. I always use at least two. And the time I threw in a bunch of (cleaned) chicken feet from when I slaughtered, it was even more gelatinous than usual.
I make it in my pressure canner. A couple-three carcasses, a couple of onions, a couple of carrots, and at least half a head of garlic. I also throw in a few bay leaves, a small handful of whole black peppercorns, and some dried hot chiles. I cook it at 15 psi for an hour and then let it cool overnight. I skim the fat off because it interferes with the seals on the jars, and then I pressure can it in quart jars. This batch has 7 quarts cooling off right now, and probably three or four more in the stock pot. I’ll probably not bother canning that last, and either freeze it or just eat it this week.
Mine boils like crazy in the pressure canner and I never have an issue with it being cloudy. If I don’t use the canner, I simmer it in my five-gallon stock pot for at least four hours, sometimes overnight.
I also like to buy cheap beef ribs, grill them up, and make stock from them. Sometimes I’ll mix the meats too. I’ve always got a couple of gallons of homemade stock in the pantry.
I make stock at least once a month. If you can establish a relationship with your local butcher, you can get chicken backs for FREE. Essentially, butchers are hacking apart the chickens for the plethora of chicken breasts that most people want and the backs are discarded. They make great stock.
My method: Dice mirepoix (two onions, two carrots, two celery stalks). Sautée the vegetables, add four chicken backs and top with cold water in a LARGE stockpot (I make 20 quarts at a time). Add bouquet garni (a bunch of parsley tied up with some thyme and whole peppercorns).
Bring to a low boil and skim the surface of the muck. Ideally, you have a “low boil” where you see a bubble every 30 seconds or so. I let it go for upwards of 8 to 12 hours for really thick, unctuous stock.
For roasted chicken stock, just oven-roast the backs for 45 minutes to an hour in a 400° oven. This will make for a dark brown, roasted chicken flavor.
For Asian chicken broth, instead of mirepoix I add the backs to the pot with a large finger of ginger – peeled and diced – lemongrass, and scallions.
Here are a few cool things about chicken stock: If you put the strained stock in your refrigerator for a day, most of the fat will congeal as a sheet on the top. You can skim that off and have mostly fat-free stock. The other thing is that if you bring your stock to boil every three days, it will not go bad. There are some restaurants in Europe that just continually makes new stock to add to old, bringing it all to a boil to kill the germs.
Yup. You don’t want to boil it because as the bones heat, they give off soluble proteins. A slow simmer - no higher than 180 degrees - allows these proteins to coagulate and form large bits that rise to the surface and can be skimmed off.
A boil churns the particles and breaks them up, and your stock ends up either with the proteins emulsified into it, or just a cloud suspension. Note: that’s not the end of the world, it’s still loads better than store-bought stock. But it’s pretty easy to not allow it to boil and you end up with nice golden clear stock, so why not?
As for me, I keep chicken, beef, and veal stock in the freezer at all times. I make big batches so I don’t have to make it too often, maybe 2-3 times a year for chicken stock, once a year for beef and veal since I don’t use those as often. I don’t always have leftover bones to use, though I do keep them and throw them in or make mini-batches as I have them.
My stock recipe from store-bought chicken is:
14 pounds of wings or drumsticks or both. Whatever’s on sale, basically
3.5 pounds of onions (peeled & chopped)
1.75 pounds of carrots (peeled & chopped)
1.75 pounds of celery (washed & chopped)
Herbs: always peppercorns, thyme, and parsley, might throw in other stuff if I have it.
I throw the chicken in my big pot and add about 11 quarts of water (just a ratio - 1 part veggies to 2 parts bones to 3 parts water). I bring it up to 170-180 degrees, and let it sit there all day, skimming the ick off the top as needed. The last hour or so, I throw in the veggies and the herbs/spices.
Once it’s done, I remove all the meat/veggies and throw 'em away and put the stock in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I skim off any fat, put it in containers, and freeze it. Yummy chickeny goodness all year round!
Note that I don’t add salt - I don’t like to, in case I end up reducing the stock for use as a sauce (more often for beef or veal, but sometimes chicken). It’s easy enough to salt-to-taste when I use it in something.
I learned this from cookbook author Pam Anderson at a class I took from her. No, not that Pam Anderson.
Put your chicken pieces in the bottom of the pot. Thighs are good. Quarter up an onion or two and put the pieces around the chicken, wedging them in as you can. The object is to have as much surface contact with the meat and onion as you can. Turn the heat on medium low and cook until the chicken releases its natural juices. You will know when this happens. If you think it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t.
Cover the chicken with water, add salt, pepper, and a bay leaf. Bring just to a boil, turn down to a low simmer and cook for an hour or two. She served this in shot glasses and we were begging for this stuff like alcoholics.
This was going to be my next question - if you can mix red meat bones with other red meat bones (for example, beef bones with lamb) to get stock, or mix fowl bones (duck with chicken) to get a fowl stock.
Thank you so much for all the information - I can’t wait to make my next batch of stock! Though I’ll have to delay my gratification. I currently just have one roast chicken that needs to be cleaned (I’ll take Omnicient’s suggestion not to overclean). I’ll chuck this one in the freezer and wait 'til I have another. When I made my first batch, I have to admit I was disappointed with the limited amount produced. I used 8 cups of water, but got 4 cups stock when all was said and done.
The Asian stock suggestion sounds absolutely lucious.
Tell me, though - do the same herbs generally work well for either a red meat stock or a chicken stock? And can you also use pork bones? You don’t hear about people making pork stock very often - is there a reason for that, i.e., pork stock is generally not as flavorful or is there something about the contents of the bones that doesn’t lend itself well to stock? If you make pork stock, do you do a separate pork stock or toss that in with a red meat or a fowl?
The herbs aren’t critical - it’s really what you want. I tend to use the same stuff for both red meat and chicken stock, but sometimes I’ll throw some stronger herbs in with the beef stock (rosemary, for example).
I’ve had the same thoughts about pork stock. No clue why you never hear about it. People do make ham stock, like in ham/pea soup, but in general I mostly hear about chicken, beef, and veal stock.
Sure, I’ve made pork stock. Sometimes I mix it with beef too. And I make ham stock, although that’s usually pretty salty from the ham. And I’ve been known to mix beef and chicken too, not just keep it to one family of meats.
I use the same spices in poultry and beef stocks, but I don’t put in a lot of herbs. I don’t think they add to the flavor, so I’d rather add them when I’m using the stock. I also avoid salt when making the stock, except when you can’t, like with ham.