I’ve been making homemade stock for years now. My personal favorite, because it is so versatile, is making chicken stock which I make on a weekly basis for use in different recipes in place of milk or water. You just cannot get that kind of flavor or nutrients from a can. Making it from scratch allows me to control what goes into my families’ bodies. For example, I do not use salt when making my stock. Rather, I add it to my recipes as I use it. This lets me monitor my grandchildren as well as my husband’s salt intake.
I keep a gallon size Ziplock Freezer bag in my upstairs freezer at all times. I add vegetable scraps such as carrots, celery and onions (including their skins) to it which I use for my weekly batch of chicken stock.
Tip: when you include the onion skins to your stock it gives the stock a gorgeous, golden color.
I use celery, carrots and onions daily for my family and for my chickens so filling the bag with enough scraps to makes my weekly batch of chicken stock is quite easy and attainable. If I don’t have a chicken carcass stored in my refrigerator or freezer from a previous meal I will simply go to my local grocery store and pick up a rotisserie chicken to use in my stock. I’ll remove the majority of the meat and reserve it for my homemade dog food for my 14 year old sweet boy Angus and I’ll place the remainder of the carcass into my stockpot.
When I make my stock, I use the largest stockpot I have. I place the carcass and any gelatinous matter into the pot. Next, I add my vegetable scraps as well as any herbs such as rosemary, thyme and parsley that I might have on hand. I also add a couple bay leaves and a whole head of garlic, skin and all that has been cut in half horizontally. You can use any herbs and vegetable scraps that you’d like to add to the stock. You can customize this stock any way you’d like. I find that my combination of ingredients’ produces not only a delicious stock, but a gelatinous stock golden in color. Now I’ll add filtered water and top off my stockpot and then put the lid on it.
Now I start the flame under the stockpot as high as it will go initially to bring the contents just to a beginning boil. Once it reaches this temperature, I will lower the flame as low as it will go so it can simmer for 6 hours with the lid on it stirring occasionally.
By simmering the contents with the lid on low and slow I am accomplishing two things:
- First, the lid helps to insure the least evaporation of stock during the 6-hour simmer
- Secondly, simmering the stock low and slow helps to achieve the maximum extraction of flavor and nutrients in the stock.
You want to be careful not to overcook the contents as they can take on a bitter taste in the final product. When the simmering time is complete, I strain the contents through a colander that is placed inside another large stockpot to hold the separated stock. This is the first straining.
Now it’s time for the second straining. This time I’ll use a fine mesh sieve and strain the stock right into my Ball half-gallon jar which is how I will store this batch. This second strain removes the fine pieces of meat and vegetables that made it through the holes in the colander during the first strain.
Once the stock is cooled, I place the lid and the ring on the jar and then I rinse the jar with warm water to remove any residue that may have spilled over the edge when I was filling the jar… It happens….
If you want to freeze this stock and you’re using the Ball canning jars, you’ll want to leave about 2-3″ of headspace and use a plastic lid which you can purchase in the canning section of Walmart and Target. You can also get them from Amazon. This will ensure that the contents can expand when they freeze but will not break the jar. Without the headspace, your jar will definitely burst or at the very least crack from the expansion of the contents.
If you simply refrigerate your stock, there will be a ring of fat on top of the gelatinous stock. You can remove this with a spoon if you’d like. I keep it in the jar and shake it up before using my stock for cooking. I find that there is incredible flavor in that fat content, and it just adds to the dish I am cooking.
I will use this stock in place of water or milk in a recipe. It also makes an incredible gravy by adding some Arrow Root, cornstarch or flour. One of my families’ favorite ways to consume this stock is in rice. It is absolutely delicious!!
I hope this has inspired you to try your hand at making some stock the next time you have a chicken carcass left over. If you don’t already have a veggie scrap bag in your freezer, what are you waiting for? You’ll be happy you tried this, and you’ll never go back to store bought. XOXO – Shawn
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