Chicken Broth (Photos)

One of the best things you can do for your pantry is to keep homemade chicken broth in the freezer. It is more cost effective and more flavorful than any canned broth you might find on a grocer's shelf. For the cost of a hen, we get about 5 pints of excellent broth and all of the meat from the hen - cooked and ready to use or store until needed. What better thing can you do?

To make broth, you'll need:



A hen - this one was about 4 pounds. We try to buy them on sale.
a couple of carrots
maybe 2 stalks of celery
four or five or six cloves of garlic
You can add an onion if you like. we were (somehow) out of onions this day.
a teaspoon of thyme
2 teaspoons of black pepper
3 teaspoons of salt
About 5 pints of water
A pot big enough to hold things

I cut up my chicken to yield 2 wings, 2 leg quarters, back and the breast portion left intact. The giblets went into a freezer bag for later use and the neck into the pot.



Here is everything in the pot.



And ready to go.



The chicken is cooked (covered) at a slow boil for about two or three hours until the bird is very tender and the broth nice and rich.



Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside to cool



debone chicken



and return bones and skin to pot.



Continue cooking for another hour, strain broth, cool, place in whatever containers you use and freeze until needed.



Wonderful Stuff.

We also freeze chicken meat, covered in broth for use in dumplings, chicken soup, chicken and rice or whatever.



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