Salt-Free Homemade Chicken Broth

October 20th, 2007

As you may have noticed I don’t use salt that much. I like to use unsalted butter, and I rarely put salt in anything I bake. I found that it is not necessary to add salt in order to have a delicious flavor. When I went on a salt-free kick way back when, I realized that chicken bouillon and store-bought chicken broths have a LOT of sodium (along with pretty much every thing else you buy at the grocery store). So I decided that I would try to make my own; This was also after wondering what I would do with the chicken carcass I had just cut-up or bbq’d.

This is a great way to use a whole chicken after you take what you want from it. I found that a whole chicken can make a whole weeks (depending on your family size) worth of meals if you use the whole thing (as opposed to just using the meat: breasts, thighs, and legs). I actually used this broth in a recipe I’ll share soon! Here is my very simple recipe (which you can extend to use any flavors you want):

Ingredients:

• A whole chicken (cooked=brown chicken broth, uncooked=white chicken broth) with breasts and other meaty-parts removed based on preference
• 1 Tbsp ground pepper or 15 whole peppercorns
• Enough water to fill your pan and cover the whole chicken.
• 1 Medium Onion
• Optional: 3-4 Celery, 3-4 Carrots cubed.
• If you’re not weird like me, 1/2 tsp salt.

That’s it, it’s a really basic list of ingredients.

To prepare:

1. Cut the chicken into manageable pieces and so that it fits into your pan. I use a big soup pan. It probably held about 8-cups of water or more.
2. Put the chicken into the pan.
3. Fill the pan with water.
4. Turn the oven on high until the water boils, then reduce to medium or high enough to let the stock simmer.
5. Next, use another pan to fry the onion, which you have chopped into eighths.
6. When they are starting to turn slightly brown throw them in the pot with the chicken.
7. Add the pepper (and salt if you must).
8. Optional: Add the carrots and celery
9. Simmer and stir occasionally for 3-4 hours. The broth will be reduced to about half of the original volume, so keep that in mind for your proportions.
10. When you’re done simmering you can use a strainer or a cheese-cloth like device to strain the broth and use as desired.

After I strained it I thought for a while about what to do with the bits of chicken pieces, carrots, and celery. I decided to remove all the bones and non-meat chicken pieces and then turn the rest into a soup. You can do what you like with it, have fun!
I hope you enjoy it!