How to Make Homemade Chicken Stock

America, you’ve become complacent. Complacent with mediocre food packed with high sodium, high calories, and low nutrition. It pains me. Every time I see someone pull out a frozen meal from the freezer at work, I die a little.

I understand the convenience of pre-made food. Really, I do. I even partake on occasion, when I’m desperate.

Really, really desperate.

Stranded-on-a-desert-island-and-no-means-of-getting-another-meal desperate.

Here’s a fact: You can make food that tastes great and is good for you–and you can do it with a busy schedule, without those atrocious freezer meals. You can. I promise.

Don’t believe me? Let me put it this way. I have a full time job, a part time job, am writing a novel, go to 2-3 concerts a month, maintain a (fairly) active social life AND I have time to cook delicious meals every week with time to spare for a book and a bath.

Even on a literal 80-hour work week, I can find time to cook. So can you, if you would stop being lazy.

Okay, right, so that’s enough chastising for one post. I’ll get to the point.

This is the first in a series of posts about getting off your lazy ass and cooking dinner.

You deserve a better class of food. And your body is screaming for it.

Today, I’m going to talk about some small things you can do to improve the food you already make. Baby steps, my friends!

There are three major, low-effort, low-cost ways to make your food taste 100% better than it does now.

1. Properly season your food with salt and pepper
2. Marinate your meat before you cook it
3. Use stock instead of water in your sauces, soups and grains

#3 is what I’m going to be talking about today. More specifically, homemade stock.

I originally wanted to start with something a little more basic, but I used the last of my chicken stock last week to make soup, and needed to do this anyway, so guess what?

STOCK TIME, BITCHES!

But what is stock, exactly?

Stock is a liquid base that is used to make soups and sauces. It differs from broth in that it’s made from bones, which gives it a deeper, more complex flavor.

There are three basic kinds: Meat/poultry, fish, and vegetable stocks. (That’s right, even you crazy vegans have NO EXCUSE.) Obviously, vegetable stock is not made from bones. But that’s another post.

And here’s the best part about stock: whenever a recipe calls for water, you can swap the same amount of stock and instantly your food will taste better.

There are two ways to do this, as always: store bought, or homemade.

The store-bought kind can be found in any grocery store, in the soup aisle. If you take nothing else from this post, buy the pre-made stuff and use it instead of water. It will help.

Even I, the champion of making it yourself, keeps low sodium chicken and beef stock in my pantry as a staple, for those times that I am low on the homemade, or to supplement it.

Note: You should always buy the low sodium version of the stock; it’s still high in sodium but not nearly as bad as the regular stuff. Be careful, though, because often they add sugar to make it taste better. If that matters to you (and it should), check the label.

But what if you’re broke? What if you have to watch your sodium intake? What if you hate wasting food?

Easy: make homemade stock instead.

Yes, it takes some time. Yes, it requires some forethought. But I swear to you, it’ll make your food taste better. On top of that, it uses ingredients that you would otherwise just throw away, making it extremely cost efficient: old onions, flaccid celery, those three carrots you forgot about in your crisper, and all those bones leftover from your Thanksgiving turkey.

According to the Joy of Cooking, “Antique dealers may respond hopefully to dusty bits in attics, but true cooks palpitate over more curious odds and ends: mushroom stems and tomato skins, poultry carcasses, celery leaves, fish heads, and knucklebones. These are just a few of the treasures for the stockpot.”

And you can really put anything in there, as long as you have some bones, some vegetables, and some aromatics. Use what you have.

The part you don’t want to hear: It does take a fairly long to make meat stock. But: your active cooking time consists mainly of dumping some bones on a tray, putting it in and out of the oven, chopping a few vegetables, and the occasional stir. That’s it. The rest of the time it just bubbles away on the stove, taking care of itself–which makes this a perfect thing to do on that cold rainy Saturday when you are stuck in the house.

Additionally, when you make it yourself you have complete control over what goes into your stock. No additives, no additional sugars (sugar! In stock! The travesty!) and most importantly: no insane amount of sodium.

So let’s review the pros and cons.

Store Bought

Pros:

Cons:

• High in sodium
• High in additives
• High in cost (relatively speaking)
• Doesn’t taste as good
• Not as nutritious

Home Made

Pros:

• Low in cost
• Uses things you’d otherwise throw away
• No additives
• Nutritious
• Delicious
• Makes your house smell good (!)

Cons:

• Takes time

As you can see by my handy (and maybe slightly biased list), it really is beneficial to make it yourself. You should try it at least once.

Oh, an an added bonus–it’ll make your house smell amazing. It’s difficult to describe the scent of stock slowly bubbling away on the back burner; it smells like home, like my childhood and the best soup you’ve ever had, and it is wonderful.

Preparing for Your Stock

The first thing you need to do is STOCK up on bones 😉

All puns aside…any time you cook something with bones, save them. I generally buy bone-in skin-on chicken thighs to cook with. They’re cheaper by far than the boneless skinless ones. When cooking, I cut off the skin and the bones, then shove them into the freezer to keep until I’m ready to make stock.

Same goes for anything else that you cook bone-in (or get from a restaurant!) You can save the bones after you’re done, freezing them until you have enough to make stock.

Once you have enough–say, 4-5 lbs of bones–you can start planning out when you’re going to make your stock.

You can also save fish heads and bones, shrimp and lobster shells, to make a fish stock with, but DON’T combine fish and meat bones.

I’m focusing on meat stock here. Fish and vegetable stock take much less time to make, so be sure if you want to make either of those you follow a specific fish or vegetable recipe, and not my meat stock recipe.

A note on this stock recipe: this is a basic, household stock. It’s not going to be beautiful and clear. It’s meant for making rustic soups and flavoring sauces and grains. If you want a clear stock, there’s more effort involved, which I won’t be getting into today.

Once you have enough bones, you can start thinking about your vegetables. A lot of things can go into the stockpot. My basic recipe involves 3 vegetables you may already have in your fridge or pantry: onion, celery, and carrots. But like Joy said above, you can use whatever…tomato skins, mushroom stems, parsley stems, etc.

What I usually do is plan to make something with carrots and celery the week before I know I want to make stock. This is because most recipes don’t use a whole bunch of celery or carrots–only a few of each–so then I use the rest to make my stock. Otherwise, they go bad in my fridge. And, since they’ve been sitting in there for a week (or a month, let’s be honest), their flavors will have intensified.

Whole carrots and celery will last a long time; if you’re saving the tips and peels, I wouldn’t recommend holding them more than a week or so.

I buy onions in bulk, so there’s never a shortage of them around here, but if you don’t cook with onions on a usual basis (FREAK!), buy them a week ahead so they’re nice and old and pungent.

And I don’t give a shit if you don’t like onions. If you’re making stock, you need onions. Stock (like most cooking and baking) is an exercise in chemistry. You take a bunch of small things and put them together; they react with each other and create something totally different. So put them in and stop whining. I promise you won’t taste them.

Tips For Making a Great Stock

The first, and most important step, is to roast your bones. This is, to me, the most labor-intensive part, because I have one cookie sheet and a tiny oven. You don’t HAVE to roast your bones, of course, but the flavor and complexity will well make up for the time it takes to roast. If you want, you can even roast your veg along with them!

To Roast Your Bones:

Preheat your oven to 400°F/200°C. Dump the bones/skin in a single layer, and roast until they’re golden. This usually takes about 15 mins for cooked bones and 30-40 mins for uncooked ones, but it depends, so keep an eye.

Note: Don’t put cooked and uncooked bones on the same pan, because they roast at different rates.

Scrape up all the bones and skin and put in a bowl, then add another batch to the oven until everything’s roasted.

I usually roast my bones a day ahead, to cut back on the day-of cooking. Usually I roast them while I’m eating dinner to cut down on the need to snack. Prepare for some good smells, my friends.

Then I cover the bones and stick them in the fridge until the next day, when I make the stock. An added bonus: all the fat solidifies on the bottom, which then doesn’t get into the stock.

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The Actual Cooking Bit

When you’re ready to make your stock:

1. Dump all your bones into a stock pot.
2. Chop up your veg. I usually quarter my onions, and then roughly cut up my celery and carrots. They don’t need to be too small, so don’t agonize over it. And I shouldn’t need to say this, but make sure you rinse all your vegetables before putting them in your stock pot. Pesticides are, as Alton Brown would say, not good eats.
3. Dump your veg into the pot with the bones.
4. Add your aromatics–in my case, a few bay leaves and peppercorns. You want to use whole peppercorns, here, and don’t use too many. A little will suffice. You can add other flavorings if you wish, like parsley, thyme, coriander, cloves, cinnamon, whatever you want, but be sparing. You’re cooking this for a long time and those flavors will get wonky if you put too much in.
5. Fill your pot with cold water, just enough to cover your bones. Don’t over fill the pot because then it’ll overflow and be a hot mess. Speaking from experience, here. Make sure you use cold water, not hot. This helps to clarify the stock, as well as enhances the flavor.
6. Put your pot onto the stove and bring it to a SLOW boil. Be careful, because it’ll be heavy, and take your time! This process is not for rushing. This is all about coaxing every last juicy, tasty bit out of your meat’n’veg, and that needs to be done gently, over medium heat.
7. Turn down the heat and let it simmer. Partially cover the stock pot so some steam escapes, stirring occasionally until all the essence has leaked out of your bones. Er, I mean until all the flavor is gone*…
8. This takes on average about 4-8 hours, depending on the amount and kind of bones, how hot your burner is, how much other stuff is in there, etc. Like I said, you’ll need to spend some time at home. Or, put that shit in your crock pot.
9. Finally…remove from the heat and let it cool a bit. Then, using a colander, drain all the stock into a large bowl. You can then strain it using a strainer to get all the gunk out.

*A good way to check this is to taste a little bit of meat left on one of the bones. If it has flavor, the stock’s not done. If it tastes of nothing, you’re good to go.

Once you’ve carefully strained your stock, rinse out your crock pot and then put the colander over it and let the bones drain for a while while they cool down. This…

• Gets you more stock
• Will prevent a leaky mess in your trash can
• Will let the stuff cool down before you throw it out. Once in my idiotic youth I dumped hot stock bones into my trash can and the plastic melted. NEVER AGAIN.

Also, plan to take your trash out once you dump the bones, or it’ll stink up your house.

Health and Safety:

Hot stock breeds bacteria. Bacteria bad. You need to cool it down before putting it in the fridge.

• The complicated but logical and effective way: Put your bowl of stock in a sink filled with ice water, stirring the stock until room temperature. Then cover and put in fridge.
• The Jax way: Pour off stock into lots of little bowls, reducing the cool time and making a mess in the process. Then pour back into big bowl and cover and put in fridge.

All the fat will rise to the top. Gross, I know, but it acts as a protective layer against bacteria, so leave the fat layer on the top until you’re ready to use it, or freeze it.

Stock will keep 3-4 days in the fridge. After that, you’ll need to heat it to a boil for a couple of minutes, and then you can put it back in the fridge for a few more days. Again, stock is a good place for bacteria. I avoid the fuss by immediately freezing my stock; in the freezer, it’ll keep up to 6 months.

Additionally, I pour the stock into ice cubes to freeze it. This takes less time to freeze, and is easier to store, AND easier to use, because then you can just throw a few cubes into whatever you’re cooking without having to defrost anything.

And that’s it. There’s really not much more to it…just roast your bones, chop your veg, throw it all in a pot with some seasonings and some cold water, bring it to a boil and then simmer until all of the good stuff has eked out into the liquid.

[recipe title=”Homemade Stock” preptime=”10 mins” cooktime=”4-8 hrs” difficulty=”easy” rating=”★★★★★” image=”https://jaxofallsarcasm.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/20200119_133242.jpg” description=”A basic stock recipe you can make with barely any cost and effort.”]

[recipe-ingredients]
– 4-5 lbs bones–chicken, beef, pork, etc–roasted, plus any leftover skins, drippings or Weird Bits
– 3 whole carrots, plus any leftover tops, bottoms and peelings
– 3 stalks of celery, plus any leftover leaves and roots
– 2 onions with skins on, plus any extra tops and skins
– 2-4 bay leaves
– 4-8 whole black peppercorns
[/recipe-ingredients][recipe-directions]
1. Add bones and other meat parts to a large stock pot
2. Roughly chop your vegetables and add to stock pot
3. Add aromatics to stock pot
4. Fill stock pot with cold water, leaving 1/2-1″ head space to avoid spills
5. Put pot on stove and bring to boil over medium high heat
6. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered and stirring occasionally, for 4-8 hours, or until all the flavor has been coaxed out of the meat
7. Carefully strain out solids and allow to quickly cool
[/recipe-directions]
[recipe-notes]
Notes:
1. Make sure you roast your bones for optimal flavor
2. Don’t rush! This takes time.
3. If you’re short on space, you can reduce the finished stock by boiling it down a bit. Just remember to dilute it with water in your recipes
4. Freeze the stock in an ice cube tray for ease of use while cooking
[/recipe-notes]
[/recipe]