a simple {real food} recipe :: nourishing chicken stock

If you missed Monday’s post on making the easiest crockpot chicken, check this out!

If you are wanting to “start somewhere” with your real food journey I would say besides getting the processed food out, this is one of the best.

So simple. So nourishing. It is like medicine. For practically free.

No really. It is. I’m probably not doing it justice. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a fancy writer.

But I’m a Mama. With a husband and 2 wee ones exposed to everything under the sun as we go about our daily lives.

And I can tell you stuff works. It is like putting liquid healing in your body. It is nourishing healing for messed up guts to heal food allergies. It’s minerals that you cannot get from our depleted soils and processed vitamin supplements. Seriously I’m not doing it justice. You have got to take it from the experts – read this article from Weston Price and this post from Nourished Kitchen about the benefits of bone broth.

Maybe I’m just naive? Maybe I’m just willing to try something new.

When I read “Broth is Beautiful” 3 years ago, I decided to try it.

Seriously – read at least one of those articles before you jump in – you will feel like Mama of the Year while you are preparing your stock!

Here’s what you’ll need:

Bones, carcass, juices from 1-2 roasted or crockpotted chickens

Veggie scraps from your roasted or crockpotted chicken, or veggie scraps from your weekly meals in general. (Carrot, onion, celery are the typical veggies used)

1-2 bay leaves (optional – I don’t always use this)

4-5 peppercorns (optional – I don’t always use this)

Filtered cold water

3 TB of apple cider vinegar (I use Bragg’s– I get it cheaper by the gallon at our local health food store but here is the link so you can see what it looks like.)

1. Fill your crockpot with all ingredients including the COLD water to cover the bones.
2. Let everything sit for 30-60 minutes WITHOUT THE HEAT ON – the vinegar will pull out all the minerals and good stuff from the bones.
3. Turn the crockpot on low for 24-48 hours.
4. Strain out your stock.
5. Store in the fridge up to a week or in the freezer for 6 months.

Tomato soup made with stock

Kitchen Tips:

1. My typical process is to throw the bones/juices/veggies into the crockpot as I’m taking apart the chicken after cooking it. It really doesn’t add any time to your day – you are taking the chicken apart anyway – just throw the bones into the crockpot and add water and vinegar. I get about 3 quarts of stock out of my weekly chicken and that seems to hold us most of the time – in the winter I tend to go through more as I am cooking more soup or we are drinking more to stay healthy.
2. You can get a couple of “rounds” of stock out of one set of bones – stock your freezer up!
3. If you are going to freeze the stock, only fill the jar ¾ of the way and put it in the freezer WITHOUT the lid on. This will give the stock room to expand upon freezing without breaking your jar…not that I have ever done such a thing… 🙂
4. Use your stock in everything! Obviously use it in bases of soups and stews. But I regularly use it instead of water when making quinoa or rice, or instead of water in any dinner casserole or crockpot recipe. When you are in the baby food making season of life, use it in your baby food purees as the liquid. It feels SO good to put that in your little ones!
5. DON’T leave the vinegar out! It helps pull all the minerals from the bones!
6. Drink your stock! Especially when you feel “run down”…it will jump start you better than any cup of coffee would…yep that was me saying that. Crazy I know. I started my oldest drinking chicken stock from her sippy by 1 year old. When Claire got her first cold around 9 months old I started her drinking it in a sippy and she did great! Cold gone in 48 hours flat!
7. DON’T re-heat your stock in the microwave. It will kill all the good stuff! Heat it up on the stove or a hot pot.

Broccoli soup made with stock

YOUR TURN!

Let me know what you think if you try it for the first time! What are some of your secrets to keeping your family healthy? PLEASE, please use the comments section of this post to ask some stock questions! This is such an important one to me and I love talking about it! I want to help make this one work for you! I have done it in every season of life!

I’ll be back tomorrow talking about how to start healthy eating habits in your kids by getting them in the kitchen with you! I went through what seems like a zillion pictures I have of the girls helping me in the kitchen to give all of you some inspiration! Come on back tomorrow to see!

This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday, Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday, The Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter, and Too Many Jars In My Kitchen’s Fill Those Jars Friday!