Made some bone-in chicken lately? Buy one of those Costco rotisserie chickens and you’re looking at its picked-over carcass? Don’t throw the bones away when you’re done!
You can use them to make homemade chicken stock that kicks the ass of anything you can buy in the store (or make from a bouillon cube). The only caveat is to keep in mind how the original dish was flavored. If, for example, you’re using soy sauce chicken bones, you’re going to end up with a stock that has a Chinese cuisine flavor profile, and may not be suitable for chicken and dumplings (or… maybe it makes the best chicken and dumplings?).
The process is dead simple. Throw your chicken bones, scraps, skins, whatever into a pot of water and set the burner to a low setting. This is going to cook for a very long time, so what you don’t want is boiling or simmering. It basically just needs to be a little too warm to touch, but not close to boiling.
I try to go for about a cup and a half of water per original piece of meat. I.e., if I have bones from four thighs, I’ll use six cups of water. It might seem like a lot, but we’re going to reduce it down over a long period of time. If you’ve seasoned your chicken before you cooked it, you don’t need to add a lot to the pot when making stock. But, you can add some herbs if you want to amp up the flavor. Sage, rosemary and thyme are classic poultry accents. But, whatever you do, do not salt the water. You can add salt to the dish you cook with the stock. You don’t need to salt the stock.
Let the pot mingle for a few hours. If you can let it sit for 5-6 hours, that is ideal. By that time, you’ve extracted all the flavor you’re going to get out of the bones. You can strain out all the solid stuff. If the stock looks too watery and doesn’t have much color, you can boil it for a little while to reduce it down. Otherwise, let it cool down to room temperature and pour it into a container, then stash it in the fridge.
If the stock has a lot of fat in it, the fat will rise to the surface of the stock and solidify in the fridge. You can just scoop this off when it comes time to use the stock, and toss the fat in the compost/trash. Now you’ve made the stock low fat, with no effort.
If the stock has a lot of collagen in it, it might turn jiggly in the fridge. This is completely normal, totally harmless and actually makes the stock more unctuous. The stock will turn completely liquid when you warm it back up.
This also works with fresh bones and scraps. If you’re trimming chicken, or removing bones from chicken, save those. I’d recommend putting them under the broiler for a few minutes to get some Maillard reaction going and enhance the flavor. Add to the pot and prepare as described above. Herbs aren’t necessary, but will give you a traditional chicken stock flavor. Fresh scraps and bones will have more collagen, so definitely see the note above.