My grandma Shelton is amazing at this. My brother and I spent a week at my grandparent’s when our parent’s were in Hawaii. The first night, we had a wonderful turkey dinner. Then turkey soup, turkey sandwiches, turkey every day of the week. It was really cool. So, this week, I’m doing something similar. Tonight for dinner we had roasted chicken per the instructions in Everyday Food’s May 2012 edition. Then I pulled all of the meat off, which I plan to use for Teriyaki Chicken and Rice (this is the Teriyaki sauce I make) and Chicken Noodle Soup.
I put all of the bones and skin in my big pot, filled it to the top with water, and added two halved celery stalks, a handful of baby carrots, and a whole onion sliced in sixths. I let it come to a boil, and then turned the stove top down to medium-low and let it simmer for about two hours, covered. When it was done, I pulled the big pieces out with one of those spoons with holes to let the stock drain out. Then I balanced my strainer on my largest tupperware bowl and poured the stock through to catch all the smaller pieces. I had so much stock that I had to bring out my second largest tupperware bowl for the rest of the stock. The celery, carrots, and onion that I put in were totally lifeless. They had a very dull color and were completely tasteless, so I have very high hopes for this stock. I will use it for Chicken Noodle Soup and Zuppa Toscana, and if I have enough, Minestrone Soup.
I found the whole chickens at Costco for $.99/lb. My chicken was about 5 lbs, so for spending $5, I got Sunday dinner, enough stock for three soups, and left over chicken for two other meals. It’s definitely worth it to use the whole chicken.
Chicken Noodle Soup and Minestrone Soup recipes to come later this week.