Making Small Batch Homemade Chicken Broth

Inspired by a post from Budget Bytes on how to make your own chicken broth, I decided to finally dive head first into making my own.  This is something that I have been wanting to try for myself for a little while now.  You could say it has been on my foodie bucket list.  (I keep talking about this foodie bucket list of mine.  Maybe I need to do a post on it soon. ;) )  For the longest time, the thought of making chicken broth from scratch was daunting to me.  Why go through the effort when I could so easily pick up a carton of organic chicken broth at the grocery store?  But then as I read the Budget Bytes post, it occurred to me that it wasn't as complicated as I had been making it out to be.  My recipe below is adjusted slightly from the Budget Bytes recipe.  I didn't have an entire chicken of bones to use.  Just two large chicken breasts, so I adjusted the recipe for a small batch.  All in all, my recipe made 4 cups of finished chicken broth- perfect for say a chowder or a some homemade chicken noodle soup.  (Ahem... recipes for both are forthcoming. ;) )

What you will need:

Skin/Bones/Cartilage from 2 large chicken breasts

Skins/peelings from 1 large onion, plus 2-3 slices of the onion

2 cloves of garlic, smashed

The tops & leaves of 2-3 celery stalks

2-3 large sprigs of fresh parsley

9 cups of water 

(If you happen to have any carrot peelings or tops, you could add those too.)

* Make sure all the veggies scraps are well washed.  You don't want any dirt or grit in your broth!

This is what I had left ^^^ after I had roasted two large chicken breasts in my Crock Pot and had removed the meat from the bones.  To see my recipe for slow cooker roast chicken, CLICK HERE.  I dumped all of this (what I would normally just toss into the trash) into a dutch oven.  And then added all the veggie peelings, skins, tops, leaves, etc.  

Cover it all with 9 cups of cold water.  Bring all of this to boil, and then turn down the heat and allow the mixture to simmer covered for 4-5 hours.  Just walk away.  You do not need to come back and stir it.  Just let all the yummy goodness from the chicken bones, cartilage, the onions, celery, garlic, parsley, all of that simmer and marry.

After 4-5 hours, this ^^^ is what you will be left with.  (Well, this and an awesome smelling house! ;) )

Place a large bowl under a colander and drain the whole pot.  All the chicken broth goodness will go into the large bowl.  All the veggie peelings and chicken parts will stay in the colander.  Now you can toss all of that in the trash.

Using a fine mesh strainer or a piece of cheesecloth, pour the broth through again.  (Make sure you have a bowl underneath!)  This will catch any of the little pieces of bone and grit the large colander may have missed the first time.

And there you go!  Your very own homemade chicken broth! :)

You can refrigerate your broth and use it within a couple of days, or do like I did and freeze the broth to use later.  I allowed the broth to cool a bit and then poured the broth into 2 quart sized freezer bags, 2 cups in each bag.  Then I just put them in the freezer.  

If you happen to roast a whole chicken, you can hop on over to the Budget Bytes blog HERE and use her recipe for a larger batch (12 cups) of homemade chicken broth.  
I am already saving my veggie scraps and freezing them now for my next batch of chicken broth.

Be looking for recipes later this week and next that you can use your new homemade golden yummy chicken broth in... ;)