Homemade Chicken Stock – Winter Herbal Health

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Homemade Chicken Stock was once a staple in every kitchen, but nowadays it’s another lost art. Using every part of your roast chicken is only one benefit of this magical healing broth. The much bigger payoff is what it can do for your health this winter. Lets take a look at this often forgotten winter herbal health hack.

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Snuggling up in bed when you feel ill is so comforting.

Add in a soothing bowl of Chicken Soup and you instantly feel better, even though you still feel ill.

In our Winter Herbal Health series, we are looking at ways to boost our immune systems and support of health through the winter months, when germs are at their highest.

We go from the cold to the warm and keep our windows closed against the bitter cold. We have heating on, and dry clothes against radiators, throwing humidity into the air.

This is the perfect breeding ground for viruses and bacteria.

But we are not helpless in this!

Winter herbal Health – Homemade Chicken Stock

What we eat during the winter months changes too. Gone is the freshly harvested bounty from the garden, full of colour and variety. In come the root veg, the starch, the comfort food.

So let’s take a look at this golden elixir that can give us a boost in those long dark winter months.

The Benefits of Chicken Stock

• Chicken bones are full of gelatine, which supports tendons, muscles and bones, as well as builds strong healthy hair, nails, and teeth
• It’s anti-inflammitory and soothing to the digestive system, which is great when you are ill and struggling to eat.
• It’s a great source of minerals, many of which we are generally deficient in, such as iron, calcium and magnesium, to name a few.
• The minerals in the broth means it hydrates the body better than just water alone does. ¹
• It makes the most of a waste product, making sure all the goodness is used from the chicken carcass after a roast dinner! I’m all for that!

So grandma was right to try and feed you up with Chicken Noodle Soup to make you feel better! It really does!

A few notes….

1. Since we are trying to get the most nutrients from the animal, it makes sense to try and use the best quality chicken you can afford. I always try to buy a free range, pasture raised chicken if I’m making broth with it.
2. I use my instant pot to make broth. It’s easy, I can leave it cooking, and even leave it overnight and it keeps it warm until the morning when I can deal with it.
3. You can, of course, use a stock pot on the stove, or even a slow cooker to make bone broth, It will just take much longer.
4. You can make plain bone broth with nothing but water, bones and a little vinegar (I’ll explain below) to use in many recipes, or you can flavour it with veggies and herbs. It just depends what you plan to use it for.

Top Tip: Keep a silicone bag in the freezer and put your onion and carrot peeling in for using in your stock, and that saves dedicating a full vegetable later!

What You’ll need:

An Instant Pot/ Stock pot/ slow cooker

A sieve or colander – to separate the bones and veggies from the broth

A bowl to catch the broth

Appropriate containers to store the broth: Jars (make sure they are freezer safe), Silicone moulds, Zip lock bags are all good choices.

Optional – pressure canner to make shelf stable

Ingredients:

Chicken bones, neck, feet, innards if you have them, they all add goodness

Water

Splash of Vinegar ( the vinegar draws out the gelatine and other goodness out of the bones and marrow, meaning the maximum benefits)

Veggies, such as Onion, Carrot, Celery

Your choice of herbs, such as Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme

Salt and whole peppercorns

Method:

• Place bones in the pot and cover with water until just above the bones
• Add the veggies (a rough chop or break will suffice for whole vegetables) and herbs of choice.

• Add the vinegar and let the whole mixture sit for about 30 mins. This allows the vinegar to draw out of the bones.
• If using the instant pot, press the soup button and let it run it’s 4 hr cycle. If using a stock pot or slow cooker bring to a boil and reduce to simmer for 12-16 hrs.

(This is why I like the Instant Pot! I do put it on 2 cycles though, so once this finished I put it on the same function again for another 4 hrs)

This is what it looked like the next morning.

• Now place a colander inside a large bowl and strain the broth out

Allow the broth to cool and store in your chosen method.

These include: Freeze in silicone food moulds, zip lock bags (seal and freeze flat for super fast thawing), or canning jars. Always use branded jars suitable for freezing unless you enjoy cleaning glass out of the bottom of your freezer. I’ve learned this the hard way, only once, thankfully.

Alternatively, you can use a pressure canner to make this self stable. As it’s a low acid food, it cannot be water bath or steam canned. This is admittedly more an American audience thing as it is not common in the UK, but it’s catching on!! I love my canner and am becoming more confident with it all the time.

This book has a pressure canning section and the instructions and recipes are incredibly useful.

Have you made your own chicken stock before? What would you add? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, friends x

Other posts you might like:

Simple Elderberry Syrup Recipe

Slow Cooked Beef and Barley Stew

References:

1. Bone Broth: health benefits, nutrients and more – WedMD