How to make your own chicken broth

Make your own chicken broth! You will save money, reduce food waste, and reduce waste in general by not buying the carton or canned broth. It’s super simple and tastes better than the store-bought stuff.

Next time you buy a rotisserie chicken, chicken wings, or any sort of chicken with bones, save the bones instead of tossing them! Store them in your freezer until you’re ready to make broth. If storing your chicken bones in a ziplock, remember to wash and reuse the ziplock to reduce waste. :)

This part is completely optional, but we recommend saving parmesan rinds and vegetable scraps too. They help enhance the flavor. Our freezer is always full of vegetable scraps because we also make vegetable broth. We just throw in a few extra of those scraps when making chicken broth. We usually have a pretty decent supply of parmesan rinds too. Keep them in the freezer and add them to your soups, sauces, and broths for an extra delicious flavor.

Chicken Broth

Ingredients:

• chicken bones

• water

• optional: veggie scraps, herbs, spices, parmesan rind

1. Place bones in a large pot or along with any of the optional items. Fill the pot with water, until it’s about 2-3 inches below the top of the pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer for a few hours. Skim off any impurities.

2. Drain. Compost what you can. The broth is ready to use or freeze for later!

Notes: Feel free to do this in a crockpot, all the same steps. :)

Simmer times depend on how you want your broth. We know people who only simmer the bones for an hour, but many recipe sources online will recommend somewhere between 4 and 24. The longer you simmer, the more it turns to stock rather than broth. And, the longer you simmer, the more nutrient-dense it will become. You can also add a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to help extract more of the nutrients from the bones. If you are in a hurry, go ahead and just simmer for a couple of hours. If you want your broth to be more like stock, let it simmer for closer to 24 hours. The broth pictured above simmered somewhere between 2-3 hours and was awesome for the chicken noodle soup we had that night. :)