Homemade Chicken Broth

When I heard bloggers post recipes for cooking a whole chicken or chicken broth, I laughed in my head and thought, “yeah, that’ll be the day when I spend $15 to make a chicken and cook it when I could buy a pre-made one at Costco for $6.” What changed? Well, I realized that the only organic rotisserie chicken I could find was at Whole Foods and it was still really expensive ($11 or $12). I used to buy good organic chicken broth (the boxes), but those are about $5/box and I always had leftovers and ended up wasting tons and I HATE wasting food and it’s so expensive! I finally found this for chicken broth and the ingredients just aren’t great. It has sugar and maltodextrin. In addition to this, some of them have yeast extract and as someone who has had Candida a few times (due to antibiotics and stress), I eat yeast very sparingly and especially avoid it in things where it really doesn’t need to be. Anyway, I’m always trying to find where I can clean up the ingredients in my diet, my eyes recently fell to this one. So while I plan on keeping my jar in the fridge for emergencies, that’s all I plan on using it for. Homemade chicken broth is so healing (more here, especially for gut health) and so cheap and easy and doesn’t have these nasty ingredients or preservatives.

All that being said, if you don’t want to cook a whole chicken, just buy a rotisserie chicken and you can still make broth from that. The other thing I love about it is that the recipe really doesn’t need to be exact. You can add more water to stretch it out. I even one time read the recipe wrong and did 12 c water (and doubled the recipe) for 1 chicken carcass (supposed to be 2 or 3). It still tasted great (it did leak a little water though FYI) , just probably wasn’t as nutrient dense as it could’ve been. You also can cook it longer if you feel like it. I’ve used recipes that cooked for 2 hrs, and this one is for 25 min. It’s just very flexible and error friendly!

This recipe is from Lexis Clean Kitchen, but I made a few modifications. The amount of salt and apple cider vinegar was inspired by Gutsy Mom’s recipe. Lexi’s original recipe is here. She also has instructions for slow cooker if you don’t have/don’t want to use an Instant Pot.

Below are the changes I have made and her recipe with my adjustments (I write out the recipe when significant adjustments have been made)

Notes:

• I halved the recipe so I can use just one chicken carcass
• Doubled the carrots
• Omitted the parsley (though I’m sure it’d be great in it!)
• Didn’t add leeks
• Added a more exact amount of salt
• Added raw apple cider vinegar (read benefits here)
• Instead of chopping veggies, did them almost whole or whole to assist in straining after and to cut down on time
• Added herbs de Provence (I’ve also done it where I just add a few shakes of thyme (abt 1 tablespoon) instead of this and that tastes great too!)

Ingredients

• 1 chicken carcass (preferably organic, free range)
• 1 onion, quartered
• 2 carrots, whole or halved to fit in the pot
• 1 celery stalk , whole or halved to fit in pot
• 1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon salt (I like Real Salt or Pink Himalayan)
• 1 tablespoon herbed de Provence or sub thyme or any other herb you’d like in broth 🙂
• 1/4 cup Apple cider vinegar
• 6 cups water

1. Add all ingredients to Instant Pot
2. Cook on high pressure for 30 min
3. Let natural release 10 minutes, then shut off and carefully release steam (I typically do that with an oven mitt) and uncover
4. Let it cool, then I put a large colander in a bowl and dump the broth in that, throw remnants from colander away, and strain the broth from the bowl with a fine mesh strainer.
5. This will make roughly 1 1/2 quarts. I put it all in mason jars in the freezer and defrost as needed. Enjoy!