Homemade Chicken or Turkey Stock

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Homemade Chicken or Turkey Stock

This easy homemade chicken or turkey stock using leftover bones for rich soups, gravies and winter meals.

Prep Time20

Cook Time4

Chilling Time1

Total Time5 20

Course: ingredient

Cuisine: British

Servings:

Calories: 9kcal

Author: Georgina Hartley

Ingredients

2 chicken carcasses or 1 turkey carcass
2 carrots
1 large onion
2 celery stalks
1 fennel bulb
1 leek
handful parsley stalks
2 bay leaves
large sprig thyme
1 teaspoon kosher salt optional
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

Instructions

Place the chicken / turkey carcass/es / bones in a large cooking pot which has a lid.
Roughly chop all the vegetables. Don’t worry about peeling, just make sure they are washed and clean. Place them in the pot along with the bones.
Add the herbs, salt (if you are using) and pepper into the pot.
Fill the cooking pot up with water. If you are in the UK then tap water is fine. You can take your pot over to the tap to fill up directly. The water should cover the bones and the vegetables but make sure there is decent headroom to the top of the pot so it won’t boil over.
Place the cooking pot on the stove and heat over a medium-high heat. As soon as the water reaches a gentle simmer then turn the heat down so the liquid stays at a simmer. Place the lid on and cook for 2 hours (chicken) or 4 hours (turkey). Check on the progress every so often.
After the allotted time then turn off the heat. Allow to sit for a moment whilst you prepare the ice bath to cool the stock. You will need a large deep casserole dish / crockpot (you could use the sink but I find the casserole dish easier to keep cold as it’s smaller). Fill halfway up with ice then top up with a little cold water.
Strain the stock into a large container with a pourable spout. You’ll probably need to do this in two / three stages due to how big your container is and how full your sieve is getting.
Pour the sieved stock into food storage bags (if you are planning on storing the stock in the food storage bags you might like to measure the amount you are adding in). Expel the air from the storage bags and seal.
Submerge the bags into your prepared ice water bath. The temperature needs to reduce to 4°C (39°F) within 90 minutes to avoid bacteria forming. It should only take about an hour to get to that temperature so keep checking it with a digital thermometer and replenish the ice every so often to keep it as cold as possible.
Once the stock has cooled then decant into your chosen storage method and place the stock in either the fridge or freezer, depending on which suits your cooking plans.

Instant Pot Method

Follow the recipe as above but place the bones, vegetables and aromatics in the Instant Pot.
Fill the pot with water up to the maximum limit.
Place the lid on the Instant Pot and set the valve to sealed.
Press Pressure Cook and set the timer for 45 minutes (chicken) or 60 minutes (turkey).
When the timer goes off to signal the end of the 45 minutes, allow it to naturally release for 10 minutes.
Quick release the pressure from the pot then turn off the Instant Pot, remove the lid and strain the stock and continue as per the recipe above.

Notes

Fresh / Frozen. You can use fresh or frozen bones / carcasses. If you are using frozen they don’t need to be thawed they can just be put straight into the cooking pot. Timings don’t change.

Vegetables / aromatics. The ingredients list is honestly a ‘in a perfect world.’ If you don’t have fennel / leeks then just carrots, onions and celery is enough. Any herbs are also a bonus. The vegetables don’t have to be super fresh but they do have to be clean and edible.

Salt. I like to salt my stock as it helps to season food throughout the cooking process. If you are concerned about salt content or prefer a neutral flavour base then please reduce or omit entirely. Then you can just season the recipe you are using the stock with instead. I use kosher salt in my cooking which has a gentle flavour. If you are using table salt then half the amount.

Ingredient amounts. Again, this is a loose guide but I tend to keep the same amount of vegetables and aromatics no matter how many bones I have. So even if I’m only using one chicken carcass I will tend to keep the same above amount of vegetables and aromatics.

Chilling. Keep your homemade stock in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Freezing. Freeze in airtight containers for up to 2 months. Either thaw overnight in the fridge or you can heat the stock directly from frozen if you need hot stock for your recipe.

Storage methods. You can store the stock in food storage bags / airtight plastic containers or Souper Cubes. Label the container with the weight of the stock, date and whether it’s chicken or turkey stock.

Nutrition information: Please note that the nutrition information provided below is an estimate based on an online nutrition calculator. It will vary based on the specific ingredients you use. Please seek a professional nutritionist’s advice for further clarification. This recipe has been particularly difficult to accurately measure using this tool as it depends on what you are using the stock for as to the nutrition per serving. I have given the calculation that the whole recipe will make 3.5 litres which is split between 25 servings.

Nutrition