Homemade Chicken Stock

So remember a while back when I told you how to flatten a chicken?  I told you to keep the bones, they’d be great for making Chicken Stock.  Well the time has come… I actually put them in the freezer because it was late that night and I didn’t have time to really do anything with them.  I didn’t want them going bad though, so the freezer seemed like the right option.

That is, until I guess I forgot about them in there.  Woops!  That’s ok, they stayed good… or at least as good as any chicken bone can.

Saturday hubby was cleaning out the freezer after we’d made a trip to the store and had groceries to put away and he pulled this dish out and said, hunny, what’s this?  It took me a minute but then I remembered, oh yeah.  So I set out on a mission to create Chicken Stock.

I must admit, I’ve never done this before.  I had plans of doing it with my turkey from Thanksgiving, but forgot until the bird carcass {boy, that sounds crass doesn’t it} went bad.

What I love is I still have a grandmother living who is all about making it yourself.  One simple phone call and I was on my way to making my own homemade chicken stock.

She told me I needed:

Chicken bones…. check!
water… oooo that might be a toughy… lol, check
Seasoning Salt…. check
Black pepper…. check
Onion…. check
Celery.  Oh crap, I didn’t have that.  Not to worry, she said to use Celery Seed or Celery Salt if need be.  whew… I had the celery salt.

Yehaw I’m on my way to making my own Chicken stock.

Grandma said to place your chicken parts (or a whole chicken even) in water and cover it with about 2 inches of water higher than the parts.  Um… mine kept floating sort of so I just guessed. It’s all a matter of how much stock you want and how many parts you have, but I’m not sure there is an exact ratio.

She told me to add onion, celery (or celery salt/seed), & a tablespoon of Season Salt.

Bring it up to a boil and then reduce the heat back to simmer and let it cook for about 30-45 minutes.

Once you have your stock cooked down, let it cool and then either A) use it, B) store it in the fridge (it should last about a week or so) or C) freeze it.

We went the freezing route. I put mine off into 32 ounces since most stock in a box you get comes in 32 ounce boxes.

Enjoy 🙂