Name: Homemade Chicken Stock
Prep time: 15 min
Ingredients: 1 Rotisserie Chicken Carcass (trimmed of the meat); 1 Large Unpeeled Yellow Onion (cut into quarters); 2 Medium Unpeeled Carrots (cut into thirds); 1.5 Stalks of Celery (cut into thirds, leaves included); 1 Bunch Fresh Herbs (parsley, thyme) (choose your favorites); ⅔ TBSP Salt (add more, as needed); ⅔ TSP Coarsely Ground Black Pepper (can also use peppercorns); 6-8 Garlic Cloves (smashed); 9-12 cups Water (or enough to cover all the ingredients)

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The Secret to Creating Mouthwatering
and Belly Filling Soup

⇒ Using Homemade Stock & a Simple Formula

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Nothing is more comforting in the Fall than a warm bowl of soup! From creamy potato to healthy vegetable to comforting chicken noodle to satisfying tomato soup – the options are endless! The great news is that making your own soup – from scratch – is WAY easier than you think. Plus, you’ll save a TON of money and be able to stock your freezer with leftovers for those busy nights when you can’t make a fresh meal.

Did I mention that making your own soup is also healthier? You’ll omit much of the sodium found in canned soups, you can include only ingredients you love, & you know exactly what’s in your soup and where it all came from. Plus, using seasonal produce keeps your costs down and nutrient values up!

I am a huge fan of buying local, and I strive to do so as often as possible. For the purposes of soup making – your ingredients need to be the freshest around. That means a far tastier meal! One of my most successful (& popular) soups, is what we call the “clean out the fridge” soup. I literally throw all of the week’s unused raw veggies into the soup. It varies based on what I’ve got left over, so it never gets redundant. I keep the fridge cleaned, allowing us to avoid wasting food, and it fills our bellies for several days.

Making soup is SO easy and it can help to trim both your waistline and your spending! Let me show you how.

Here are the 6 Basic Steps to Making Soup:

Step 1:

Sauté your aromatics in a deep soup pan, using a small amount of olive oil or butter. Aromatics are flavorful starts to nearly every dish – think onions, leeks, garlic, shallots, or ginger.

Step 2:

Add your base (hard) veggies – those that need to cook longer and will provide great depth of flavor for your finished product. Think celery, carrots, parsnips… You’ll add your first bit of seasoning via salt, black pepper or perhaps tomato paste if you are building a tomato-based soup. (NOTE: Steps 1 & 2 often go together.)

Step 3:

Include your protein, if using. In this stage, you’ll want to brown your animal proteins. Don’t worry about cooking all of the way through. They will finish cooking during the simmering process. Alternatively, some folks like to brown their meat first, then remove it to a separate plate while the aromatics cook in the animal fat. After the veggies are cooked, add the browned meat back in, and proceed to step 4.

Step 4:

Add your base cooking liquid (& canned tomatoes or beans, if using). Bring to a boil, then simmer. Be sure to adjust to a simmer for 20-30 minutes. If you overboil your soup, your veggies will be mushy. and the proteins will be tough. Taste your broth – does it need more salt, pepper, etc.? Add a little bit now, plus your herbs. Remember, as your soup simmers, the water will evaporate some and your flavors will intensify. Season in stages. Consider adding firmer ingredients like diced potatoes halfway through this stage to soften properly.

Step 5:

Add your more delicate ingredients – tender veggies, green beans, etc. – towards the end of cooking. This stage will take 10-15 min, based on the size of your remaining veggies. Smaller pieces cook more quickly. Veggies like zucchini will go earlier in the stage (heat for the last 10 minutes), add tender spinach towards the end (heat for the last 3 minutes).

Step 6:

Taste the final product and adjust seasonings as appropriate. To impart creaminess, you can now add milk (cow, oat, nut). Plate your soup and add a festive garnish to feed your eyes as well as your belly. Consider something crunchy for a creamy soup, a fresh herb for a slow cooked, hardy soup, or even a sprinkle of freshy grated parmesan cheese to a tomato-based soup. Whatever you like – add it.

Soup Example #1:

If you are looking to make an Italian based veggie soup, here’s how I’d follow the formula:

Step 1 & 2: Sautee onions, carrots, and celery in EVOO until they begin to soften, 5-7 minutes. Add minced garlic, salt & pepper. Cook another 30-60 sec.
Step 3: No protein for this one. Skip.
Step 4: Add veggie broth, a can of diced tomatoes & a can of drained cannellini beans. Add some herbs now – fresh or dry, whatever is handy. Thyme, parsley, basil, bay leaf would each work in this dish. Pick your favorite. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes.
Step 5: Add diced zucchini and cook in broth for 10 minutes, before adding a couple handfuls of baby spinach. Heat through for 3 minutes and remove from heat.
Step 6: Ladle into a bowl and garnish with a spoonful of freshly grated pecorino cheese.

Soup Example #2:

If you are looking to make a chicken noodle soup, here’s how I’d follow the formula:

Step 1 & 2: Sauté onion, carrots, and celery in butter with salt & pepper, until softened, 5-7 minutes. Add minced garlic for another 30 sec.
Step 3: I want to add chicken, but I already have some cooked rotisserie meat. I’ll add that towards the end.
Step 4: Add chicken stock, bay leaf and fresh thyme now. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20-30 minutes.
Step 5: Adjust seasonings. I prefer to pre-cook my noodles and add them to my serving bowl, so they don’t get mushy. If you’d prefer to cook them in the soup, add your preferred noodles & cooked chicken meat now. Simmer for 8-10 minutes.
Step 6: I’ll add a splash of AC vinegar or lemon juice to cut through the richness. Feel free to omit. Ladle into a bowl and garnish with crushed saltines or butter crackers.

Soup Example #3:

If you are looking to make a creamy vegetable (tomato) soup, here’s how I’d follow the formula:

Step 1 & 2: Sauté onions & garlic in olive oil until softened. Add a little salt, continue another 30 seconds.
Step 3: No protein for this one. Skip.
Step 4: Add a half cup of white wine, scrapping up the bits from the bottom of the pan. Then add your vegetable broth, canned tomatoes, and herbs of choice. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes.

⇒ By the way, let’s say you wanted a different veggie, like butternut squash. Adjust your fat & aromatics – try shallots and ginger in maybe butter/ghee or coconut oil.
I’d omit the wine and swap the tomatoes for small cubes of squash. Adjust your herbs and spices to compliment this different veggie – maybe try rosemary, sage or thyme.
Or consider cumin, curry or cinnamon based on your preferences. Please don’t use all these choices – pick one, maybe two – and see how you like it.

Step 5: No other veggies are in this soup but be sure to taste your dish and adjust seasonings now. Satisfied with the flavor? Puree your soup with an immersion blender.
Step 6: Remove from heat and add heavy cream until smooth. Ladle into your favorite soup bowl and top with a spoonful of crème fraise or even crunchy homemade garlic croutons. Enjoy!

Just Follow the Formula

So, as you can see, this is a method or formula, not a recipe. Experiment with your favorite ingredients, keeping everything basically in the order above. If you swap a step or two, as you saw in my examples above, no problem. And as far as measures go, consider this: you need enough ingredients to give your soup body & flavor, but a balanced amount of liquid to prevent it from getting too thick (stew-like). Then add flavorings to suit your tastes. Start with a little and add as you go. You can always add more – you can’t take away. It’s hard to ruin soup – just go with the flow and see what happens. Looking for more ideas? Check out this list of the 20 Most Popular Soup recipes.

The Importance of a Great Broth or Stock

The base of most great soups starts with a flavorful broth or stock. Broth is typically made from the meat of an animal (or simply veggies), while stocks include animal bones for added flavor. Stocks & broths are basically flavorful ingredients simmered in water for a long period of time. Sure, you can buy cartons of the stuff for cheap at the grocer’s, but do you really know what’s in it?

Do you wonder why it lasts on the shelves so long? Have you ever been shocked by how much salt is in broth? Do you ever find yourself throwing away scraps of veggies when cooking or at the end of a week and wish you didn’t have to waste so much food? If you answered yes to any of these questions, making homemade stock might just be for you.

It does take time, but it makes a bunch of servings that you can freeze for your next soup extravaganza. Or other purpose. You can basically use homemade stock in any savory application that calls for water. Want to boil rice, quinoa, or pasta? Use broth. Want to make a pan sauce after sautéing some chicken? Use broth. Love risotto? You’ll need broth/stock. Want to braise meat in a liquid – use stock.

My Secret Ingredient

My go-to recipe that allows me to make broth AND have another dinner ready that same night starts with a rotisserie chicken. Our favorite weeknight cheat is Costco’s rotisserie chicken. It is easy, affordable, and delicious. On a busy day, I can stop by the store, pay < $6 for an entire bird and head home before the chicken is cool. I’ll remove all the meat from the bird and reserve the carcass. I can use the meat that night in a casual salad, mix with a little rice or quinoa & seasonings for a hearty meal, or partner with seasonal veggies for a healthy and satisfying dinner. Plus, there’s always enough meat left over for lunch the next day.

When I have extra time, usually on the weekends, I’ll remove the carcass from the fridge or freezer and make a delicious batch of stock. I throw the bird, veggies, herbs, and salt/pepper into a large pot, adding enough water to cover everything and simmer until my broth is just the way I like it. Sometimes I only have an hour – those days my broth is less flavorful, but still very useful. Other days, I have more time and I can let it cook for 3-4 hours. You don’t have to babysit it – just let it go. This gives me a huge pocket of time to get other things done around the house. On those days, I am left with the most flavorful and luscious stock.

→ Don’t forget this important step:

After I strain out all the veggies, I’ll place the cooled liquid in the fridge overnight. This is important – your rotisserie chicken will create a lot of fat from the skin and other tissues. You need to remove this, otherwise your stock will be greasy. By chilling overnight, all the fat will rise to the top and you’ll be able to discard easily. Or reserve to use elsewhere if you prefer. After removing the fat, you are left with beautiful stock, bursting with flavor and certainly healthier than anything you’ll be able to find in the grocery store. Plus, you just cleaned out your fridge and didn’t throw anything in the trash without using it first! You’ve wasted less food and didn’t spend any extra money to make this awesome stock. For added savings, consider using the cooked carrots and/or celery in a quick chicken noodle soup that same night.

How Do I Store This?

At this point, divide your stock into whatever portion sizes your family uses most. I divide mine into 1 or 2 cup portions. Historically, I used labeled freezer bags, but now I use a silicon divider tray. This way I can pop each cube out when once it’s frozen and store all of them in the same freezer bag.

When a recipe calls for 1 cup of stock, I reach into the freezer and pull out a block of stock. No longer am I wasting half of a can because the recipe only called for 1 cup. Same with the aseptic boxes – super awesome with the resealable twist on lids. But if you aren’t using 4 cups of stock right away, the liquid will go bad quickly, and you’ve wasted both money and product by only using a portion. Make your own and divide into appropriate portion sizes. You’ll never waste product again and you’ll always have stock ready to use.

Making homemade stock really couldn’t be much easier. Next time you bring a rotisserie chicken home for dinner, throw the carcass, along with some veggies, seasonings, and water, into a pot and you’ll have stock ready before bedtime. Then add your personalized stock to any soup recipe you choose for an easy and satisfying weeknight dinner.

How to Make the Base for Any Soup → Flavorful Stock

Here’s my personal recipe for chicken stock. While these are my preferred ingredients, I don’t always have every single one in the fridge. No sweat, just make it with whatever you have. And if you are a vegetarian – you can still follow this recipe, just omit the chicken.