Chicken Broth, Homemade

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Ingredients

4 lbs chicken breasts bone in, skin removed
4 quarts water
3 medium onions quartered
3 ribs celery roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic smashed
4 sprigs fresh thyme
5-6 fresh parsley stems
2 bay leaves
1/2 Tbsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Rinse the chicken well under cool running water and remove skin if present.
Place all ingredients in a large stockpot or Dutch oven.
Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for 1 hour; at that point, the chicken should easily pull away from the bones.
Using tongs, remove the chicken from the stock and set aside until cool enough to handle.
Strain the cooking liquid through a fine-mesh strainer, discarding the vegetables.
Pull the chicken meat off the bones, discarding the bones, and any fat.
Shred and reserve the meat, and refrigerate until needed.
Cool the stock, then store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or in the freezer for 6 months.

Notes

Chef Tip: You can add a variety of vegetables. I like to keep a freezer bag in my refrigerator for the discarded ends, leaves and peels of the vegetables I use throughout the week and add them to my stock. In addition to onion, celery and herbs, I also sometimes use mushrooms (or mushroom stems), eggplant, asparagus (or discarded ends), fennel (stalks and trimmed ends), bell peppers, chard (stems and leaves), etc.

I keep a separate bag in my freezer for chicken and beef bones and add them to my broth to create nutrient rich bone broth. For best results, I simmer my bone broth up to 24 hours.