Basic Chicken Stock

A stock soup base made from chicken bones.

Ingredients

• 1 gallon of water
• 3 pounds of chicken bones
• 1 tablespoon of white vinegar
• 1 batch of ice cubes, at least 5 pounds

Equipment

• 2 large cooking pots
• Measuring cups and spoons
• A ladle or large spoon
• A strainer

Serving/Storing

In a large cooking pot, put the water, vinegar, and all the bones & other bits. It's important to start with everything in cold water to get maximum nutrition out. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Simmering is when you stir a bubbling liquid and it stops bubbling for at least 5 seconds. If it starts to bubble sooner than that, turn down the heat.

Boil for 6 hours, covered.

At the end of 6 hours, fish out a bone. If it snaps in half just with a gentle squeeze, you're done. Pour the stock through the strainer into a second cooking pot, to get all the chunks, bones, etc. out. Add the ice to the second pot and stir until it's dissolved.

Don't skip on the ice or you'll have a warm fridge overnight, and that's bad mojo.

Stick the pot in the fridge overnight.

The next day, scrape off the solid fat off the top.

You've now got chicken stock, which you can use to make chicken soup (add noodles), as well as use in any recipe calling for chicken stock. Chicken stock can be frozen in ice cube trays and put in bags in your freezer - when you're ready to make chicken soup, just put some cubes in a pot and turn up the heat.

Nutrition

1 cup of final product is probably about 240g, with 8g of fiber, 6g of protein, 90 calories. Because we added vinegar to it, there's some calcium in there as well. Skimming off the fat means that even though we started with fried chicken, most of the unhealthy part got scraped off at the end.

Economics

Estimated cost: Ask for chicken bones at your supermarket's meat shop/butcher counter - many will give them away for free. Chicken bones and bits can be put in a bag in the freezer indefinitely until you're ready to make stock. If you can get the bones and stuff for free, you're basically paying a nickel for the vinegar, and that's it.

Notes

A simple stock is a great way to get the nutrition out of what's otherwise waste parts of a chicken. If it's in the budget, tossing in an onion, carrot, clove of garlic, or celery can make a big flavor difference, but the basic stock itself will do the job.

Source: Christopher S. Penn, original derived from tons of sources

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