Homemade Chicken Broth

Homemade chicken broth is infintely tastier and healthier than storebought! It's one of those things that makes ya feel really good--you know exactly what's in it! I got halfway done with this batch yesterday before I thought to take photos, though. I'm on the ball like that.

Start by placing a whole chicken in the crockpot and cooking on low most of the day. Unless you are pregnant, in which case you should most certainly buy chicken broth at the store. The end.

When your chicken is falling-off-the-bone tender, remove it. After it's cooled, take the meat off.

Place the bones and other yucky stuff (the technical term for those things I'd rather not think about) back into the crock pot. Add a coarsely chopped onion, some parsley, a bay leaf, a bit of salt, and the veggies of your choice. I added celery but was running low on other veggies, so I added a can of mixed veggies. Under normal circumstances, I don't use canned vegetables, but since they get discarded anyway, it's okay. They're just for flavor, and I simply omitted the salt. Add several cups of water, too. I don't measure, but I guess I added a good 5 or 6 cups. Cook on low several hours, or overnight.



Voila! It looks and smells delicious!

Strain the broth into a large bowl. Discard the contents of the strainer, unless you've got nice chunks of chicken in there. I didn't want to sift through the yucky stuff, so I made sure to get all the chicken beforehand.



Idn't it luuuuv-ly?
(That's my attempt at a southern accent.)



Just for kicks, I poured mine into a measuring bowl. Just shy of 8 cups. And, since I'm just a bit fussy about these sorts of things, I added enough water to make it 8.


I used up all my broth for chicken noodle soup, but you could pour it into individual one-can-sized servings and freeze it. There you go!

I can't have homemade chicken noodle soup without also making homemade noodles. It sounds impressive, but stay tuned: it's as easy as cut-out cookies! But with fewer ingredients!