How many recipes call for chicken broth or beef broth or vegetable broth? How many call for pork broth? Ok, well that one is far more unlikely, but I’m not entirely sure why. Just take a trip to Ippudo in NYC and have their tonkatsu ramen which you can bathe in it is so good. Either way, broth derived from meat and/or vegetables is an important ingredient as star in a soup or as a flavor enhancer in a number of applications from risotto to sauces or drinking straight for that matter.
You can get by in life by occasionally purchasing canned or boxed broth or bullion cubes/concentrates from the grocery store when you need it on Thanksgiving or Christmas, and by buying canned chicken soup when you are sick. But what if I told you that you don’t need to buy anything to make your own at home to always have on hand at a moment’s notice?
How is that do you say? The first thing to do is to think about what you are throwing out and whether you should be. The base for making broth is meat, bones and vegetables. Have you ever thrown out any of those? Perhaps you’ve eaten a rotisserie chicken, a T-bone steak or a bone-in pork chop and just tossed the bones. Perhaps you have trimmed a piece of meat and cut away some flavorful bits. Perhaps you have tossed some veggie trimmings and/or tossed some that were close to going bad and weren’t fresh enough to cook. That’s where the opportunity lies.
On the bone front; I’ve read that it is perfectly safe to have a chicken leg that has been gnawed on tossed in a pot of boiling water for stock. Or to do the same with a bone-in ribeye, which gnawing on is quite delightful. But I get the hesitation there and even I don’t go that far. How do I alter my eating habits to facilitate broth production?
Chicken
Chicken breasts are typically boneless, but when the bone is on it is easy to pull the meat off of the bone before digging in. The thigh is obviously the best piece on the entire chicken, but it is also very easy to pull from the bones. There are a number of muscles in the thigh, but a couple of attempts and you’ll know how to pull it apart with ease. The legs also have some pretty defined pieces, so just pull them all off of the bone before eating and set the bones aside. The wings may be going a bit far on the prepper side of things for even me, but grab that wing tip as it is GOLD. If you get whole wings in any form, roasted, fried, any form, save the tip for stock.
If you have a whole chicken, whether roasted at home or a rotisserie chicken from the store, save every bone that you can and the entire carcass.
Another good way to gather bones is to opt for bone in when you buy raw chicken. My single favorite piece of chicken to buy is leg quarters. They are always the cheapest chicken you can buy, with a leg and a thigh attached and having the back bones attached. They are easy to roast or sous vide and then apply the above methods to remove the meat and save the bones. Any other chicken you buy, save money by buying with the bone and butcher them yourself.
Beef and Pork
For beef and pork it is pretty much the same but slightly smaller bones when it comes to pork. Bone-in roasts and steaks are great. Simply cut or pull away the bones and set aside. And I’d say always go with bone-in for steaks and chops whenever an option as they are more flavorful with the bone on. Ribs work well if they are dry rubbed and not saucy. The problem with ribs is that the conventional wisdom nowadays says fall off the bone ribs are not ideal, so harvesting the rib bones might be difficult unless you’re into fall off the bone ribs or are cool with using gnawed on bones for your stock.
The good thing about pork and beef is it is also generally easy to either ask your butcher for bones that might be discarded or just buy bones from the case. So, if you need to make a batch and you don’t quite have the quantity of leftover bones to make one, go and buy some to supplement what you already have at hand.
Vegetables
Most vegetable scraps that you would typically discard are actually perfect for broth. Ever toss a broccoli stem after trimming the florets? Ever cut off and toss the leafy tips of celery? Have some scallions or herbs that have wilted a bit and you’re not going to use them? All of these should actually be saved for broth.
The standard practice for diced onions is to cut off the top, half through the root, peel off the outer layers, make some horizontal and vertical cuts and slice across. Then, typically the top, the peeled layers and the root are discarded. That is a ton of wasted flavor. For the top and peels, discard the paper layer but keep the rest and for the root, just cut off the sprouted part and keep the rest of that as well. This is gold for homemade broth. Do. Not. Discard. Mail them to me if you don’t want to save them.
Carrots are the next most important vegetable for broth. If you have to trim, peel and chop some carrots for a recipe, this is great time to save some scraps. First, wash the carrots well. This might seem unnecessary when you’re going to be peeling them but… Second, carefully trim just the roughest bits off the ends of the carrots and discard, and then cut where you would have usually trimmed the carrot. Save that bit. Third, peel the carrots and then save those peels (I have another peel saver coming up, but more on that later).
Gathering and Storing
We’ve identified every day scraps typically thrown out that can be the keys to good homemade broth. So, throw them in the freezer when you encounter them and soon you’ll be ready. I like to keep gallon sized bags for each meat, labeled, in my freezer to collect the bones and scraps and I’ve accumulated a number of smaller bags for vegetables over time, but just start with a gallon sized bag for those as well and use as needed.
Our plan is in place and we are gathering scraps of the meats and/or vegetables that we want to make our own broth for. I only make chicken, beef or pork broth personally, but go ahead and make veggie broth as soon as you feel like you have enough scraps on hand. If you’re into it, make a seafood broth, saving some shrimp and/or lobster shells and some fish bones/scraps. I’m ready to make a batch of broth when I have a bag full of bones of a particular meat and enough freezer space to store the excess broth or a specific need for that type of broth.
Let’s Go!
If you have raw scraps and/or want to supplement your scraps with additional raw meat/veggies, you can add more flavor with a pre-roast before you begin the brothing process. Toss them in a bit of salt and pepper and a little oil and roast them 20-25 minutes at 375 just to develop some color. If you do this in the stock pot you’ll use for the broth you can move straight to the broth. If you are using a sheet pan or something else to do the roasting, be sure to scrape up all of the browned bits, perhaps with the assistance of some water or wine, into your stock pot.
At this point it’s basically toss everything in the pot and enjoy a wonderful smelling house for the day. Toss in your bones of choice. Toss in your veggie scraps (I tend to use a third to a half of my veggie scraps depending on how much I have at the time). Add whatever additional flavorings you want. If you didn’t roast and deglaze with win as above, add some wine now (white for chicken, red for beef). A tablespoon or two of vinegar is good to extract collagen from the bones and create a richer stock. A couple of bay leaves and any other herbs of choice are excellent adds; parsley, thyme, rosemary. A couple of tablespoons of garlic (about 4 cloves or so), a glug of soy sauce and a teaspoon or two of whole peppercorns are typical adds for me. One unusual item I like to add is those dry vegetable packs from instant ramen. I don’t care for them much with the noodles, but keep them to toss them in the broth.
One thing that you should avoid adding too much of is salt. If the broth is seasoned enough to be a finished soup, if the broth is then used for a sauce or another application where the broth is reduced, it can make for a dish that is too salty in the end. Fill the pot with water and bring to a boil. Lower the temp enough to keep a slight boil going, cover and simmer anywhere from 3 hours to the rest of the day.
When your broth is done, strain through a mesh strainer. For beef and pork, larger bones can be used multiple times for broth as long as they are not starting to disintegrate, so pull those out and throw back in the freezer for next time. Another pass through a strainer, this time lined with cheese cloth, is good to remove some of the smaller particles, but not required. One additional option at this point, depending on your storage choice and final application of the broth, would be to put the broth back on the stove in order to reduce and concentrate the broth a bit.
As for storage, if you are going to be using any for a recipe or simply to drink the in the next week, set aside that amount and store it in the fridge. Any broth that you won’t be using right away will need to go in the freezer. Some people freeze the broth in ice cube trays and store in a Ziploc bag. I usually just go with some quart takeout containers, filled about ¾ of the way and stash those away in the freezer.
As for applications, the sky is the limit. Heat up some in a coffee mug with some salt and pepper for a delicious and nutritious warm drink. Use as the base for any soup, stew or sauce. Chicken piccata made with homemade chicken broth is fantastic. The sky is the limit and you made it with scraps you were throwing away all along.
