Homemade Chicken Stock Recipe (Chicken Necks Can Actually Be Useful!)
What would YOU do with 3 pounds of chicken necks?
A common household dilemma, right? (I hope you are picking up on my thick sarcasm)
I’ve never had to ponder the fate of a bag of chicken necks until my parents generously shared a portion of Amish chickens that they had ordered. They sent us home with a cooler of whole and quartered freshly slaughtered, organic chickens but hidden within their generous gift to us was a bag of necks. We went though the other chickens fast but the bag of necks sat in our deep freeze for months. I was about to toss them out when my mom told me they packaged them up so you could make chicken stock out of them. Oooooh. So THAT’S what I should do with them.
I’ve never made chicken stock before so I set out to find a recipe.
What I found was that there are a gazillion different recipes and ways to make chicken stock. I finally landed on a version of this one from the food network.
So now that I had 9-10 cups of chicken stock, what did I do with it??
Well, I used our chicken noodle soup recipe and made a big ‘ol batch. This came in handy when both my husband and I came down with some sort of flu bug. We still have quite a few servings of the soup in the freezer that I plan to use in the near future. Yum! I was pretty glad I didn’t chuck that bag of chicken necks out!
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A simple combination of chicken and veggies will help you create a healthy, delicious homemade chicken stock. Freeze some to use in homemade soups!
Ingredients
- 3–4 lbs of thawed chicken parts (in my case, necks)
- 1 large onion quartered
- 4 carrots peeled and cut in half
- 4 stalks of celery, cut in half
- A handful of fresh thyme
- A handful of fresh basil
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 whole cloves of garlic
- about 9–10 cups water
Instructions
- Bring all ingredients to a boil in a large stock pot and then lower to a simmer, uncovered for about 2-3 hours.
- Strain out all ingredients leaving just the chicken stock.
- Note: Some recipes say to refrigerate overnight at this point, but I didn’t do this.
Notes
Freezer Meal Instructions:
To Freeze:
Let stock cool completely. Ladle in to freezer safe bags or containers and store for up to 3 months.
To Prepare:
Pull individual sizes of chicken stock from freezer and let thaw in refrigerator overnight. Use in soups, casseroles, or any meal that calls for chicken stock.
Are you sure it’s only9 cups of water ?? Cause I tired this and after six hours the water was all gone ??
Thanks for letting us know about this. I double checked a few sources and I think we had the cooking time length wrong for some reason. Should only be 2-3 hours, not 5-6. So I made that change. Sorry about that, but I’m glad we got this older recipe corrected!
I’m 64 and have grown up eating chicken necks and backs both fried, and in chicken and dumplings. Give them a try and you’ll be surprised how good they are. I love them either way.
How long will this last in the refrigerator? We use chicken stock instead of water to cook rice, so it wouldn’t all get used at once.