How many times have you ordered or brought home a BBQ chicken (or chickens) for dinner?
In our home, we tend to carve it up into pieces for serving and are left with that middle ‘carcass’ as well as some juice/gravy…and they usually end up in the trash.
Bad Move.
That stuff is GOLD!
It can be used to make a delicious chicken stock. Whenever I make this I literally feel like I am making ‘something from nothing’.
If you aren’t up to making the stock the same day that you have eaten the chicken, just freeze the carcass in a freezer bag and use it at a later date. You can even accumulate several of them and make a big pot using them all at once 🙂
Ingredients
1 chicken carcass plus any skin and /or gravy left in the bottom of your foil or serving dish. (You can also include leftover pieces if you know they will not be eaten. This sometimes happens with wings in our house).
2-3 carrots
2-3 stalks celery
1 onion
Salt, to taste ( I don’t put a lot- the chicken is already seasoned)
Method
- Place chicken, skin, gravy all in a regular size soup pot with enough water to cover ( 6-8 cups)
- Add salt
- Bring to a boil and skim ( there won’t be as much to skim as when making regular chicken soup)
- Add vegetables
- Bring to a boil a second time and reduce heat to low
- Simmer until vegetables are tender.
- Strain
- Remove small pieces of chicken off bones and ado soup, if desired
- Cut vegetables and add to soup, if desired.
Voila!
The colour will be darker than you are used to and the taste will be different than your typical chicken broth, but it is absolutely delicious!
In these times where we are trying to ‘stretch’ our ingredients to go a little further…This is how you make something from nothing!
Waste not, want not 🙂
Enjoy!
Tanya
