Rich, Delicious, and Worth-It Chicken Stock

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About this Recipe

By: Rachel

A wise teacher once told me that I couldn’t expect to get through life by taking any shortcuts. Anything worth doing, was worth doing the right way; that is, the way of diligence, hard work, and determination.

• Chicken or turkey bones (backs, wings, necks, and feet), and/or leftover bones from a whole roasted bird

• Vegetable scraps, or onions (skins included), unpeeled carrots, celery, and leek, all cut into chunks (per 2 pounds (1 kilo) chicken, roughly: 2 medium carrots, 3-4 stalks celery, 1 medium onion or shallot, and 1 medium leek)

• ~1-1 ½ quarts (1-1 ½ liters) water per pound of poultry, or enough water to cover your bones and vegetables in a large stockpot

• Kosher salt

So that’s turned out to be kind of true? I mean, definitely, mostly true. For example, I’ve certainly learned that:

•     If your English teacher assigns the entire class to read Bleak House in June and have it read by the first day of school, you should not start the night before. 
•     If Google Maps says it takes twenty minutes to drive somewhere, there is no world in which it actually takes ten minutes.*
•     If you are asked to make ice cream for a friend’s birthday party, and your ice cream maker says “freezer component must freeze for a minimum of 24 hours before making ice cream,” it turns out that sticking it in there for four or five hours will not, in fact, “probably be good enough.” 

On the other hand, though:

•     It doesn’t matter how many days or weeks you have been given to generate an essay; with enough coffee, you can absolutely write something outstanding in less than eight hours. 
•     *Except for sometimes, like when you completely avoid all of the traffic backed up on Hennepin Avenue down to I-94 by cutting through Mount Curve and getting on through Groveland: ten rush hour minutes saved.
•     When (surprise)! the synagogue ladies are coming over to your house tonight for mah-jongg and you need to make delicious and impressive risotto by 6:30 p.m. and it’s already 5:00 and you haven’t left work, a pack of beautifully pre-diced butternut squash will do just the trick. (Unless I’m trying to work out some Issues, I have no room in my life for trying to reason with a whole butternut squash on a weeknight, thanks, and this is one kitchen shortcut where no one will be the wiser). 

In the kitchen, as in life, there are places to make compromises, and places not to. Stock, in my opinion, is not a place to make compromises. Convenient though they may be, there is no can or carton of broth that will truly stand up to the complex, robust flavor of homemade stock. If you can add just one thing to your “from scratch” repertoire to deepen the flavor and raise the quality of your dishes, I would recommend taking the time to make your own stock. 

Not only is it delicious, it is much more economical than buying stock at the market – each time I make a batch of chicken stock, it yields about 15 quarts from $20 worth of chicken bones, and a bag of vegetable scraps I keep in my freezer. That works out to about .75¢/quart… compared to $3-$6/quart at the supermarket, and it tastes much better, too!

So, how do you make it? 

First, you will need bones. I use any combination of backs, wings, necks, and feet. You can get packages of chicken feet at Asian specialty markets—if you aren’t familiar with them, they are fantastic for soups thanks to their high cartilage content, but are not necessary. You can also use the leftover carcass from roast chicken or turkey.

You will also need vegetables. I keep freezer bags full of vegetable scraps in the freezer— onion and shallot skins, and the trimmed ends of carrots, celery, and leeks. Getting into this habit helps cut down on food waste, and is also a great way to obtain a rich-tasting stock. However, you can always use the entire vegetable, cut into chunks. In my opinion, including onion skins is essential.