Homemade Chicken Stock and Soup – Super Easy AND Delicious

I’ve written about homemade stock before… but this is hands-down the easiest and most delicious chicken stock to date. Sure… the one I posted earlier is SUPER good. But this is just as good and way easier!

BFW’s Super Easy and Delicious Homemade Chicken Stock and Soup

Ingredients:
Serves about 4

2 bone-in, organic chicken breasts
1 cup of white or yellow onion, chopped
1 cup of carrots, chopped
1 cup of celery, chopped
Salt and Pepper
1/2 Lemon (optional)

For the chicken, I like to buy WholeFoods organic, split chicken breast. It’s the perfect portion size, they are organic and they often go on sale (like the one below). Open the package and remove the skin from each breast.

No need to wash the chicken breasts, as we all know… this just spreads the germs around your kitchen more! Instead, I put the breasts in my sink, remove the skin there, toss it in the trash and then immediately place the breasts in a dutch oven or stock pot. After, I use clorox wipes to disinfect the sink area. No interest in contracting salmonella here!

Fill the dutch oven or stock pot with water (try not to splash, as this spreads germs too!), until it’s about 1-2 inches from the top lip.

Bring the pot to a boil, turn down the heat to med-high and let it simmer until all the bone foam rises to the top. I use a skimmer to remove all the foam before I add anything else to the pot.

Once sufficient foam has been removed, add your chopped vegetables. I cheat and buy Trader Joe’s Mirepoix. The portion is exactly right and it makes this recipe that much easier.

At this point, I also add about a tbsp of salt and a few turns of fresh-ground cracked black pepper. You can also add the juice of half a lemon (organic or wash it first) and then toss the lemon flesh and rind right into the pot too.

I like to use an Italian-seasoned salt blend… it adds a teeny bit of spiciness and a nice amount of Italian flavor. Something like this would work very well. You could also easily make your own or just use regular sea salt. Here’s what mine looks like:

Return the pot to a boil, leave uncovered and turn down heat so the pot continues to simmer without actively boiling. Let this simmer for as long as you’d like. I generally give it a few hours and taste periodically, so I can tell when it’s reached the right level of flavor (for me).

I often have to add more salt along the way. Taste it and season to your liking.

As the pot continues to cook, the broth will develop this beautiful golden color. You can see that this pot has reduced by an inch or two. I like the broth to reduce, to increase the flavor. Every pot is different, which is why it’s so important to taste along the way!

Once the broth has reached the desired flavor, remove the chicken breast from the pot. Remove the bones and cartilage from the chicken and use your fingers to shred the breast meat and set it aside in a separate container.

Drain or strain the vegetables out of the broth. I toss these. At this point, you can add everything back into the pot and customize your soup with any other vegetables you’d like to add. You’ll probably want cook it for another 30 minutes or so. Personally, I like to create individual soup portions and customize those when I eat them.

I split the 2 chicken breasts into 4 equal portions (in microwave safe containers), I then divvy up the broth between the four containers. If it seems like too much broth, you can easily add less to each container and then store the remaining chicken broth for use in other recipes.

When I’m ready to eat the soup, these are a couple ideas of what I like to do:

I add chopped cilantro, fresh avocado, a little lime juice and some sriracha sauce.

Sometimes I do the same thing, but add some organic corn tortilla chips (broken up) to top it off. This is a really yummy combination and one of my personal favorites!

Bon Appétit!