Homemade Chicken Stock

The other day, I posted about slow cooker baked chicken - and today I'm gonna post about what to do with the carcass and other stuff in the slow cooker after you've taken the chicken apart. I, recently, discovered that you can use more of the chicken than just the meat. I'm sure most of you already knew that, but I never really *thought* about how chicken broth was made. Now I know! To see how to make your own chicken stock, check out this blog.

Photo from Pinterest

Since I had already made my chicken in the slow cooker - making the stock in the slow cooker was genius and I was so excited to do it! I cut up all the ingredients, put it in the slow cooker and let it go to work. By the way, just so you don't make the same mistake I did, you can use the leftover parts of the veggies that you wouldn't normally use for this. You will be straining them anyway, so have at it. It does say this in the blog, but I didn't read far enough down for that, so I'll just tell you again. :)

After all the ingredients are in the crockpot, you can let it set all night and most (if not all) of the next day. But be forewarned: your house will smell delightfully like dinner which is non-existent, so have a plan for dinner or you will have a hungry mob on your hands. This was the only chicken stock recipe I found that didn't require a timer. So simple! I like simple.

I used mostly pint jars and one quart jar (says the novice canner...I think that's what I used). I wrote on the lids of the jars since those can't be reused anyway, and I filled the jars and let them set just a bit longer. You don't want to put them into the freezer hot because they will burst.

My quart jar did not fair well in the freezer. Within hours, the jar had cracked and a mess was made. I think I may have filled the jar a bit too full, and the liquid still may have been too hot. My pint jars are still doing just fine though. In the future, I plan to stick with the pint jars.

There you have it - easy-peasy. This is fantastic and healthier than any store-bought chicken broth and so so so easy. I'd recommend this method any day.