Let’s make chicken stock & NOT make it complicated.

First off, I’m not saying it’s my way or the highway with broth or stock or broths and stocks; I’m just mentioning that TOO many times I see overcomplicated broth and stock making recipes floating around social media and the internet that confuses and overwhelms people to the point that they don’t feel like they can make it themselves. Well, I’m here to help you out. If you’re here from my most recent reel about this on Instagram or Facebook, WELCOME!

I keep things insanely simple. Broth & stock making is SO EASY. And I’ll prove it to you. Let’s begin by figuring out if we’re making a stock or a broth. Since I’m no professionally trained culinary expert, I honestly don’t care and label my jars interchangeably with whatever my brain says to write that day. But for the sake of sounding slightly educated and correct, a broth is made with meat and vegetables and a stock is made with bones. I use meat, bones, and veggie scraps so I apparently make a brock… or a stoth. :D

When we process chickens, this kicks off a 10+ day adventure of cooking meat off bones and stock making. Sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. Most of the time is down time for cooking or running the pressure canner. I have one roaster that I use and for 27 chickens, it takes me 3 separate cooks to finish all the bones. Plus, I do 2-3 stock batches off of each batch of bones, testing the bones between batches to see if they’re crumbly or not to decide is 3 batches is going to happen. If the bones crumble easily between my fingers, I call them done. Other folks like to use an electric pressure cooker or even their pressure canner for this, but I personally don’t like to use my big canner for it…. it’s a pain to clean and if I used my tiny instant pot it would take me over 30 runs to do. No thanks.

I’m going to break this down into days for you and hopefully make it clear on exactly what I do. As always, this is what I do, and it doesn’t have to be what you do. I’m simply sharing what I do in hopes of helping someone get started and not be so overwhelmed. Another note here is that you can freeze bones and carcasses to make broth at a later date. I choose not to because I don’t have the freezer space to devote to the bones come fall and I really want all that nutritional goodness on the shelf for winter! See the end of this post for some affiliate amazon links to my favorite tools for processing and canning chicken and chicken broth!

DAY 1: (usually same day of chicken processing in the afternoon.) I fill my roaster pan with the carcasses after cutting off the breast and thigh meat I will freeze or can. I add 1 gallon of water and cook at 350F for about 3-4 hours, or until the meat is falling off the bones. I remove from the heat and pull the bones out and pick the extra meat from those bones. That meat is canned separately. I then add the bones back to the roaster pan with a bag of veggie scraps I have frozen and a crushed bulb of garlic if I have it, cover with water which takes about 2 gallons, and cook at 200F until the next morning. This is normally about 12-18 hours of cook time.

DAY 2: In the morning, I ladle off the stock into quart jars, straining through a small mesh strainer set on top of my jar funnel. I pull of 7 quarts of stock total and leave the rest. There’s usually not much left. I then pressure can this stock for stock times you’ll find in your canning book. I then add about 2 gallons of water to the roaster pan and set it back to 200F and let it cook until the following morning, about 24 hours.

DAY 3: In the morning, I, again, ladle off the stock into quart jars, straining through a small mesh strainer set on top of my jar funnel, pulling only 7 quarts of stock total. I then test the bones and see how crumbly they are by squeezing between my thumb and pointer finger. If the big thigh bones crumble easily, the bones are done, but if they do not, they’re good for another batch. You may find the bones snap in half easily, but I don’t consider that crumbling. Add about 2 gallons of water to your roaster pan, enough to cover the bones, and again cook at 200F for about 24 hours.

DAY 4: In the morning I test the stock by tasting it to make sure it tastes good. The third cook can sometimes need an extra 12-24 hours of cook time to really get flavorful. If it’s to my liking, I rinse and repeat as above. Jar up and at this point I consider my bones to be depleted and done because they always crumble. Do what you want with them. They make great bone meal for the garden!

You can add WHATEVER you want to your broth. Splash of ACV. Chicken feet. Herbs. Get creative!! I personally love the color and additional flavor using onion and carrot scraps plus a crushed bulb of garlic impart. I add 1/2-1 tsp of salt to each quart jar before canning, IF I remember, and it’s perfectly seasoned every time leaving no guess work on how much to add to the roaster. I have read different opinions regarding broths and processing times in the canner. Some folks say all broths can be canned for stock times and others will say if you deviate from an approved recipe, they need to be processed for meat times. Take this information and do your own research and decide what works best for you and what you are comfortable with.

Here’s a good link to read:

National Center for Home Food Preservation | How Do I? Can Meats (uga.edu)

I am going to place affiliate links below for my favorite roaster pans and tools I use to make my chicken stocks; simply click the picture. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for your support!