Homemade chicken stock is a pot of bones, a few vegetables, and water, held at a gentle simmer until the liquid tastes like chicken. It is not a sealed recipe and it is not difficult. It asks for time and for a cooling step that people skip. The pot can bubble along while you do other things in the house, as long as you check it. The part you cannot outsource to hope is food safety: start with cold ingredients from the refrigerator, keep the simmer honest, and get the finished stock cold quickly. A rich stock left on the stove overnight is a loss, not a tradition worth keeping.
You can make stock from a raw chicken, from leftover roasted bones, or from wings and backs saved in the freezer. Raw pieces give you meat you can eat as well as bones for the pot. A carcass from a roast is a thrifty second use. Freeze bones if you will not make stock within a day or two. Keep them cold until they go into the pot. Do not rinse raw chicken under the tap. Rinsing splashes bacteria around the sink. Pat the chicken dry if you are searing it first, and wash your hands, the board, and the knife with hot soapy water when you are done handling it.
Choose a simple set of ingredients
A useful pot starts with about two to three pounds of chicken bones or a small whole chicken, one onion, two carrots, two celery stalks, a bay leaf, a few peppercorns, and a handful of parsley stems if you have them. Salt is optional at the start. A light hand is wiser, because the liquid reduces and you may use the stock in a dish that is already salted. You can salt the soup you make later. Garlic, thyme, and a small piece of ginger are fine if you want them. Skip the liver. It turns the stock bitter and muddy. Skip broccoli, cabbage, and a mountain of strong vegetables. They can take over the pot and make every soup taste like boiled cabbage for the rest of the month.
Put the chicken in a large pot and cover it with cold water by about an inch or two. Starting in cold water helps the pot heat evenly and gives you time to skim. Do not fill the pot so high that it will boil over. A heavy boil is not the goal anyway. If you want a deeper color, you can brown the bones or the chicken pieces in a skillet first, then cover them with water. Browning is a flavor choice. It is not required for a clean, useful weeknight stock. A pale stock still tastes like chicken if you simmered it long enough.
Bring the pot up slowly over medium heat. As it approaches a simmer, foam will rise. Skim that foam with a spoon for the first twenty minutes or so. The foam is not a moral failing and a little left behind will not ruin you, but skimming keeps the stock clearer and cleaner tasting. Once the surface is calm, add the vegetables and the bay leaf. Adding them at the beginning is also fine. They will give a bit more vegetable flavor and go softer. Either order works. Do not add so much water later that you drown a good pot, and do not let the water cook away until the bones are exposed. Check the level when you pass the stove. Add a little hot water if the top bones are peeking out.
Simmer gently and cook the chicken safely
A bare simmer is a few small bubbles breaking the surface, not a rolling boil that thrashes the bones. If you measure, the liquid wants to stay in the neighborhood of 185 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit, hot and steaming, short of a furious 212. A hard boil makes a cloudier stock and can turn the chicken stringy if you hoped to eat the meat. Set the lid ajar so the pot does not boil over and so the heat stays steady. Stir once in a while so nothing sticks, though a true stock should not need constant attention.
If you used a whole raw chicken or meaty pieces and you want to eat the meat, take the chicken out when a thermometer in the thickest part of the breast and thigh reads 165 degrees Fahrenheit. That often happens in the first forty-five to ninety minutes, depending on the size of the chicken and the heat. Remove the meat, return the bones and skin to the pot, and keep simmering. Do not leave the meat in for four hours if you planned to shred it for dinner. It will be dry and dull. The bones can stay. The meat should be cooled and refrigerated if you are not eating it within two hours.
For a carcass or a bag of bones, simmer for about three to four hours. Wings and meaty raw pieces can go for a similar stretch once any meat you want to eat has been pulled off. More than four or five hours is rarely better in a home pot and it raises the chance that you forget the stove. The stock is ready when it tastes pleasantly of chicken and the vegetables are spent. A spoon cooled for a moment and tasted is the test. If it tastes like hot water, give it more time or start with more bones next time. If it tastes sour or odd at this stage, something was off with the ingredients. Do not try to rescue a sour pot with salt.
Strain, cool fast, and store in shallow containers
Turn off the heat. Set a colander or a fine strainer over a large bowl or a clean pot. Ladle or pour the stock through it. Discard the spent vegetables and bones. Let the stock settle for a few minutes, then skim some of the fat from the surface if you like a leaner stock. Leaving a little fat is fine. It carries flavor. You can also chill the stock and lift off the solid fat cap later, which is easier and cleaner than chasing liquid fat with a spoon.
Cool the stock quickly. A large pot of hot stock sitting on the counter for the afternoon is the dangerous version of this project. Set the bowl or pot in a sink of ice water and stir for several minutes. Pour the stock into shallow containers, no more than about two inches deep, so the center cools. Refrigerate it within two hours of the moment it came off the heat. Leave lids slightly loose until it is cold, then seal them. If you cannot get a very large batch cold in time, split it smaller and use more ice. Do not put a single boiling gallon into the refrigerator in one deep jar and hope.
In the refrigerator, use the stock within three to four days. It should look and smell clean. A firm jelly when cold is a good sign that you extracted gelatin from the bones. It will melt again when heated. If the stock smells sour, looks fuzzy, or fizzes, discard it without tasting. Freeze what you will not use in time. Leave headspace in jars or containers because the liquid expands. Freeze in one-cup and two-cup portions so you can thaw exactly what a recipe needs. Flat freezer bags work well. Label them with the date. For best flavor, use frozen stock within about three to four months. Keep the freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
Use it so the pot was worth it
Thaw frozen stock in the refrigerator, or warm a frozen block in a covered saucepan over medium-low heat with a splash of water if you need it sooner. Reheat stock until it boils, and boil it for a minute before you use it in a dish that will not be cooked long. If it will simmer in a soup for a while, bringing it to a boil still matters so you know it is hot through. Do not leave thawed stock in the refrigerator for a new full week. Use it within a few days of thawing.
A cup of stock can replace water in rice, a pan sauce, or a pot of beans. A quart becomes soup with vegetables, a handful of noodles or rice, and the shredded chicken you saved, reheated to 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Taste for salt at the end. Homemade stock is often less salty than a boxed carton, which surprises people who are used to seasoned broth. Add salt in the dish, not by dumping it into the entire frozen stash. If you want a seasoned base for a specific soup, season that pot.
Save the fat you skimmed if it smells fresh. Chicken fat keeps in a covered container in the refrigerator for a few days, or longer in the freezer, and it is excellent for roasting potatoes. If you will not use it, throw it away in the trash once it is solid, not down the drain while it is liquid. Fat and a cold pipe are how sinks clog. Wipe greasy containers before they go into a full wash.
Mistakes that waste the afternoon
A rolling boil for hours is the first mistake. It clouds the stock and cooks off more water than you wanted. The second is salting heavily at the beginning and then reducing the pot into something you cannot use. The third is adding every vegetable scrap in the bin, including bitter peels and wilted cabbage, and calling the result versatile. The fourth is walking away for the entire day without checking the level or the flame. Set a timer every hour. Look at the pot. The fifth, and the serious one, is cooling too slowly. Ice water, shallow containers, and the refrigerator are the method. A pot left out overnight should be discarded. Do not taste it to see if it still seems fine.
The sixth mistake is forgetting to wash the board that held raw chicken before you cut bread or salad on it. Stock feels virtuous. Cross-contamination undoes the care. The seventh is storing the stock in one giant jar that does not fit in the freezer and does not cool. Smaller containers are the entire storage strategy. Make the pot when you have bones and an afternoon at home. Simmer it gently, pull any meat at 165 degrees Fahrenheit, strain it, chill it fast, and freeze the extra in cups. The next tired evening, you will have a real ingredient instead of a carton you meant to buy.