Dinner is over and you find yourself with a roasted chicken carcass. You could toss it in the garbage – but if you toss it into the slow cooker with a few simple ingredients you’ll wake up to some delicious homemade chicken broth or stock. Last week we had rotisserie chicken spinach salad (thanks to a trip to Costco), so I took my rotisserie chicken carcass and made chicken broth while I slept!
I think Costco rotisserie chickens are my favorite. They are larger than the ones you’ll find at grocery stores and for only $4.99 they are definitely the best bargain. I do like the flavor better, too. And that transferred really well into the stock. I think it’s better than my homemade chicken broth using my own roasted chickens, which I made on the stove top.
INGREDIENTS
Leftover roasted chicken carcass (basically everything leftover)
See my post about roasting chickens or just use a store bought one.
Five (5) carrots
Five (5) celery stalks
One (1) onion, quartered
Two (2) bay leaves
Parsley, fresh or dried
A couple whole garlic cloves (or not, if you don’t like it)
Water
Salt, pepper to taste
HOW TO PREPARE
1.) Throw all ingredients into slow cooker
2.) Fill slow cooker with water, leave about an inch at the top to avoid overfilling
3.) Cook on high heat for about 8 hours. I have seen recipes that say to cook it on low, but I’m paranoid about keeping chicken at a low temperature for so long. That’s just me. So I cooked mine on high and it still turned out great. I’ve seen recipes that go for as long as 16 hours, but I found overnight was plenty on high.
4.) Using a ladle – spoon the broth mixture through a colander with very small holes into a larger bowl. If you have cheese cloth you can use this over a regular colander. This is to remove any bits of bone or vegetables from the broth. Be careful it will be hot.
5.) Pour strained broth into smaller containers for freezing. Leave some extra room to account for the liquid expansion when it freezes. I froze mine in 2 cup containers to make for easy measuring later.
Here are other Slow Cooker Crockpot recipes we’ve recently posted:
- Slow Cooker Pork Roast with Apples recipe
- Slow Cooker Turkey Chili with Pumpkin recipe (you can’t taste the pumpkin!)
- Slow Cooker Chicken Santa Fe recipe
- Slow Cooker Breakfast – Overnight Pumpkin Pie Steel-Cut Oats
- Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumpling Soup recipe
See Amazon’s best selling slow cookers and Crockpots here
Just released! The Science of Good Cooking (Cook’s Illustrated Cookbooks)
I use Costco carcasses all the time to make chicken stock. Couple of hints. Use broth instead of water, save all your onion, carrot, cwelery, mushroom, parsley stems, you get the idea in a plastic bag in the freezer whenever you are making ohter dishes. Whebn I go to make stock then I just dump the bag in the stockpot or crockpot. This makes essentially a double stock. I also save the chicken hearts, wing timps chicken skin, backbones in a separate bag and throw those in the stock as well. Chicken wings and legs have a lot of collegen and make a great jellied stock. I am rich when I have lots of stock in the freezer!
Hey just a heads up if your crock pot is newer (it looks like it is) even the low settings reaches 220-plenty safe 🙂 I had to call the company cause my stuff was cooking too hot and she let me know that high and low, for food safety reasons, have to reach the same temp 😉
Making this for tonight, can’t wait!!
Arielle
I do this when I get a chance. I freeze my chicken carcass until I have a day to do the stock. It’s so much better tasting and better for you when you make it from scratch! It’s great for making a huge batch of chicken noodle soup (I use the chicken that falls off the bones after the stock has cooked) when friends are sick, I put the soup into mason jars & take it to their homes. I use chicken broth in so many recipes and there’s no reason to buy it when it’s so easy to make from chicken you’ve already eaten!
I was wondering if I could use that chicken. Do you just wait for it to cool and pick through the veggies and bones?
I do this and love it. I freeze the stock in 2 cup portions. I have a recipe that is for 24 hours on low. I usually do it more for 16 hours. I’ve always cooked on low and never had a problem. I loose liquid as well but I found because of the long cooking time the stock is so flavorful that I can add some water to bring it back to the level it was when I started and it doesn’t diminish the flavor. I have also found homemade stock is so much more flavorful so you can actually use half stock half water in a recipe and it still has more flavor than if you bought it from the store.
Awesome recipe! One question -I had it on high for 7 hours and have half the amount of liquid in there now 🙁 Did I do something wrong?
Did you have a lid on it? It should cook down a little, but with a lid on it, you shouldn’t lose too much?
Hi! Yep I had the lid on 🙁 I wonder if it’s too hot? I’ve wondered about that before when I have had it on high :/
Thanks for this recipe! The turkey was pretty much done after Christmas Eve (our big to-do) so I left it in the roaster, added the veggies and lots of water. I put 4 quarts in the freezer and made a big pot of soup too!
Yes, throw out all the veggies. They are pretty much done.
Thanks, I wasn’t sure because they looked so pretty in the pic above. Seemed like you could find something to do with them 🙂
as an added bit if you use yellow onions and leave on the skins (or some of the yellow skins) it will add a nice golden color to the broth.
Yep! This is how I have been making mine for a few years now except I usually start mine on high for a couple hours before bed then drop it to low for the remainder. Enjoy!
Do you eat the carrot, onion and celery? Just curious if there is a use for the veggies or if you just throw them out.
You certainly can! I usually don’t.
Thank you.
I’ve never made stalk to freeze like this, sounds like a great idea. But this is your basic build for chicken noodle soup. I will be using my veggie s and. A portion of stalk for soup. FreeZe the rest of the stalk