Using the Whole Chicken

[AlaskaMike]

I'm not sure how many others do this these days, but every time I roast a whole chicken I make a pot of stock and use it to make chicken noodle soup.

Tonight I roasted a smallish chicken for dinner and now have a big pot of chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove. The smell in the house is amazing. Making the stock, I threw in some black peppercorns, a couple of bay leaves, and sprinkled some Lowry's seasoning salt in it. After I pulled out all the bones, the bay leaves, and all the peppercorns I could find, I diced up some Yukon gold potatoes, Alaskan carrots, celery, and one onion. For noodles, my family likes the wide egg noodles instead of fettuccini or similar.

I recognize that people did this in the past during hard times to make the most of what they had, however, I just love doing it.

It beats the heck out of the canned stuff!

[Winger Ed.]

We do that for chicken and dumplings.
Cut up & boil the chicken. Take the pieces out, de-bone & chop it up.
Toss all the bones back in to boil another hour or so.
By then, the dough for the dumplings is done. Strain the bones out, season it, and put the dumplings & chicken meat back in to boil.

Yep, It's a little trouble, but I prefer that over the canned stuff I tried one time about 30 years ago.

[megasupermagnum]

I never understood how people ate Campbells chicken noodle soup. Just give me a glass a salt water, so I don't have to gag on whatever the floating oil gunk is.

The only reason most people don't make soup like that anymore is because it is more work. Chicken breasts are dirt cheap, so most people use those.

[AlaskaMike]

Well, I guess that's what confuses me. It really isn't that much more work. When I roast a chicken, I need to cut it up into the breasts, the wings, the legs, and the thighs regardless. It takes me about 20 minutes at most. Hey, I'm an IT guy, not a chef. :-)

Once that's done, I grab a pot, throw the carcass into it, along with a bunch of water, the bay leaves and peppercorns, and make stock out of it. After that, the soup part is really just cutting up the veggies.

Maybe if I didn't like doing it, it would seem like it took a lot longer. It sure does taste great, and make the house smell amazing though.

One of the things I really love is that it's one of the few healthy things I can get my teenage daughter to eat! She inhales my chicken soup!

[megasupermagnum]

You just said it, it takes you 20 minutes. More if you count picking out the bones. It takes 5 seconds with chicken breast. Maybe a couple minutes to shred it up later. You get a more full and diverse flavor with a whole chicken and bones, but breasts are way easier, and still taste really good.

[MUSTANG]

Every time we have chicken or Turkey we save bones and make soups from it. I have always been prudent and avoid wasting - particularly food. I suppose it comes from Parents and Gand Parents and Great Grandparents that lived the Great Depression. I just find it normal.

[MaLar]

It's called home cooking from when I was a kid. We grew up poor and this was the norm.
We did every thing we could to make things stretch.

[GregLaROCHE]

Leftover turkey parts makes good soup too.

[Walks]

I guess it all depends how/where/when you grew up.
Both My Grandmothers did it. They raised families during the depression. Just like they never bought chicken parts, whole chickens to be cut up or roasted whole. My Mom never did it, but then she I'm sorry to say wasn't much of a cook. Dad taught me to cut up poultry when I was 7-8yrs old. Rabbits & squirrels too. I've been cutting up chickens for My Wife for almost 40yrs. She makes GREAT chicken and turkey soup.
Has made duck & pheasant on occasion too.

But Yeah, I've had My share of Campbell's chicken soup. It's about the only thing I can taste when My sinus's are blocked up.

[GhostHawk]

I do either Chicken and Dumplings or Chicken Noodle soup after a whole chicken. Same after a turkey.

I find I like a dash of curry in the pot for complexity and aroma. And poultry seasoning. Along with either cheap chicken bullion cubes or better than Bullion from the jar for really good flavor.

[fiberoptik]

Add a good splash of cider vinegar in it to pull calcium from the bones [emoji3090].
When you serve, splash a bit of lemon juice in your bowl; it tastes amazing!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MaryB]

If you don't have time to simmer the bones toss them in a food saver bag and vac pack them(use paper towels as padding for sharp bone ends). Save them up and make a huge pot of stock or bone broth(stock takes 2 hours max, bone broth 6+ hours and the bones will have started to dissolve when you pull them out). Then freeze the stock to use for soup in a hurry, can cube a chicken breast and toss in simmering stock after you cook any veg until it is crisp tender or tender, the breast cooks in 5 minutes. Quick Chicken soup!

Instead of noodles or dumplings I love wild rice!

[country gent]

I do the same with beef broth. Cook a beef roast all day in the slow cooker have the roast taters carrots for supper use the broth for beef stew vegetable soup and or beef gravey.

A couple ham hocks cooked over night in the slow cooker makes a great broth for bean soup also. pull the bones and add soaked navy beans carrot and onion maybe some diced potato simmer all day in the crock pot.

Making the broth or stock is the key to a good soup or stew.

Usedto be you could buy "soup" bones to cook down at the store.

[Kosh75287]

BRAVO! Use EVERYthing, and waste NOTHING!

[MT Gianni]

A friend went into improving his pasture this past year. He put 400 chickens in a fenced enclosure and moved them daily. The improvement in his grass was phenomenal. Between the nitrogen and the ground having no bare spaces this field was 20 % higher yield than then others. I helped him slaughter and process about 300 of those birds. The taste difference between them and pen raised is incomparable. Most were around 5 lbs at slaughter though some may have hit 7 lbs. I boned the breasts, save the thighs and legs for grilling and stew the backs and necks. Gizzards, hearts and wings are eaten also, livers got tossed.
I stew or soup them with carrots, onion, garlic, celery with the leaves and a handful of rice or pasta. Add some 505 Hatch Green chiles to your bowl if you wish.

[gwpercle]

Don't forget about that leftover Turkey carcass after Thanksgiving and Christmas .
Strip off all the meat and freeze then use that Turkey carcass to make a big pot of stock , keep it in containers in the freezer .
I add onions , celery , garlic and carrots the turkey and nearly fill the pot with water ...
4 hours on a low simmer and you have a good stock for soup , stews , chile , Gumbo ...
Turkey Gumbo is the Best !
Gary

[BJK]

I always do that with chicken, turkey, ham. I waste nothing. Now I'm in ketosis and can't eat carbs. But with the ham I strip the bone and add some shredded veggies and a pound of dry legumes of some sort, bay leaf and whatever else. Now I can't do that for me but I still make the stock and the dogs love it in their dishes with their food. Very little goes to waste in my home.

[LaPoint]

We do the same with chicken and turkey. We often will make stock and freeze in in resealable plastic bags. I like to add the stock when making gravy. I put it in beef gravy as it mellows the flavor.

[ruger1980]

Cooked a chicken all day in the crockpot today, then thickened the broth and served over homemade biscuits with greenbeans.
MMMMMM Good

[Hannibal]

Don't forget to break the leg bones so you get the bone marrow.

[trails4u]

Yes to all above..... It's the way we've always lived, don't know anything different.

[G W Wade]

Handy tip if you ever want shredded chicken or pork. Chop into large chunks and put in your stand mixer with the paddle in. Low speed. GW

[Bmi48219]

As a kid working at the corner ‘not quite a supermarket’ the butchers usually gavesoup bones to regular customers and people in need. Ox tails for soup were 10 or 15 cents a pound and made a flavorful soup. Beef short ribs too. With 8 siblings there usually wasn’t much left over chicken but turkey carcass soup and ham bone based soup were regular fare after holidays.
My favorite was a thick rice soup with a broth made of chicken gizzards, hearts and livers. Grandma’s recipe, served with Parmesan cheese and buttered Hard Crust Italian rolls. She called it Risotto. If we had Sunday dinner there it was the first course. Followed by chicken and spaghetti then a salad.
The wife will make white bean chili with the leftover turkey from our early holiday dinner with the grandkids.

[AlaskaMike]

Yep, my parents were products of the depression as well, and I picked up a lot of things from them too.

We did use the Thanksgiving turkey carcass for turkey soup as well, and it probably got eaten faster than the turkey itself!

Thanks for all the replies--you guys are also giving me some great ideas here too.

[MUSTANG]

BMI48219, thanks for the memory and making my mouth water. A ham bone and Navy Beans! Brings back some really good memories from my youth. As I've said on occasion; did not know we were poor until I joined the USMC - but we never missed a meal and what some think of as "Simple Food" sure makes my mouth water; even in my more prosperous senior years where I am fortunate to be able to afford more High Table fare.

[Jim22]

Last week my local grocery store had a sale on whole chickens so I roasted one. Took meat off the bones and made soup. Rather than noodles I prefer the rice mix my store has - three or four kinds of rice including wild. Chicken soup needs onions, garlic, and celery. I usually add some Knorr chicken stock (Caldo de Pollo) in the Mexican section.

Jim

[MaryB]

Turkey wild rice soup

Turkey stock form Thanksgiving bird, strip all the meaty bits off the bones too!
Chopped dark meat(can use breast, have to add it very last minute or it will be dry)
Chopped celery, onion, carrot
Wild rice
Cream(optional)
S&P as needed
Some poultry seasoning as needed, my stock had bits of stuffing in it so no need

Saute the veg in some butter until clear, add turkey stock and bring to a simmer. Add rinsed wild rice and simmer until rice is tender. Add chopped dark meat and simmer 15 more minutes(5 minutes for breast meat). Add in cream if using and bring up to serving temp, do not simmer or the cream will break and get grainy.

Serve with biscuits/crackers/cornbread etc etc... makes a very filling meal.

[Hdskip]

Bones, fat, scraps, etc gets boiled into stock here. Then it is either frozen or pressure canned for future use. Gibbs rule #5 is :You don't waste good!....

[redriverhunter]

I watched my grandmother do it often, always good soup. I tried but I must have boiled it too long, when the back fell apart I was picking those little bones out every bite.

[Lloyd Smale]

i have to admit chicken carcasses get tossed. To much bother for the small amount of broth i get from them. Turkeys carcusses though always go in the pressure cooker to make broth. I then take the broth an left over turkey jar it up and pressure cook it again. I keep jars of broth and turkey on the shelf and when i want soup just cook some noodles and dump them in. i do keep left over chicken in the freezer too for when i do this and just toss it all together. I dont bother till i have a full pressure cooker pot of quart jars to can.

[Lloyd Smale]

Turkey wild rice soup

Turkey stock form Thanksgiving bird, strip all the meaty bits off the bones too!
Chopped dark meat(can use breast, have to add it very last minute or it will be dry)
Chopped celery, onion, carrot
Wild rice
Cream(optional)
S&P as needed
Some poultry seasoning as needed, my stock had bits of stuffing in it so no need

Saute the veg in some butter until clear, add turkey stock and bring to a simmer. Add rinsed wild rice and simmer until rice is tender. Add chopped dark meat and simmer 15 more minutes(5 minutes for breast meat). Add in cream if using and bring up to serving temp, do not simmer or the cream will break and get grainy.

Serve with biscuits/crackers/cornbread etc etc... makes a very filling meal.

I like chicken and rice too but cant get my wife to eat rice so i just dont bother anymore.

[dverna]

If you don't have time to simmer the bones toss them in a food saver bag and vac pack them(use paper towels as padding for sharp bone ends). Save them up and make a huge pot of stock or bone broth(stock takes 2 hours max, bone broth 6+ hours and the bones will have started to dissolve when you pull them out). Then freeze the stock to use for soup in a hurry, can cube a chicken breast and toss in simmering stock after you cook any veg until it is crisp tender or tender, the breast cooks in 5 minutes. Quick Chicken soup!

Instead of noodles or dumplings I love wild rice!

I’m with you...rice is nice!!

[BJK]

I absolutely love chicken and rice soup, either white rice, brown rice, or wild rice.

[MaryB]

I like chicken and rice too but cant get my wife to eat rice so i just dont bother anymore.

Wild rice isn't really rice... it is a grass seed LOL and doesn't taste anything like rice or have the texture of it.

[Winger Ed.]

Wild rice isn't really rice... it is a grass seed

So is wheat, and even bamboo.
'Grass' is a pretty big umbrella that lots of plants fit under.

[dverna]

What a good thread. I am 71 and my folks lived through the Depression and tough times. We did not eat fancy, but we ate well, and my mom was a fantastic cook. People who don't have it easy make do.

Not chicken soup, but my mom would buy chicken livers because they were cheap. Fry them up with onions, peppers and a bit of garlic....YUM YUM YUM. Come inside after shoveling snow and chow down a plate of the stuff with real bread to sop up the juices.

I bet 98% of folks under 40 have never had chicken livers.

[Winger Ed.]

I bet 98% of folks under 40 have never had chicken livers.

Oh yeah.
In the old days, at the store there was only whole chickens. Now days, 95% of the grocery store display is just cut up parts.
At ours, there is still a small section with a few whole ones, containers of livers, and packs of hearts & gizzards.

When we cook a whole chicken, I get a couple packs of livers & gizzards to go along with it.
I'll tell Mrs. Winger, "Hey, I remembered to get extra guts too".
That way, I get to eat almost all of them. Otherwise, she'll eat more than her fair share.:bigsmyl2:

We make our own dog food too. I'll get a big bag of leg quarters, and 5-6 containers of livers.
I boil & de-bone the chicken, boil the livers separately, mix it all in with cooked rice, then boil down the bones for broth.
The dogs love it, and it's not all full of chemicals and such.

[Lloyd Smale]

Wild rice isn't really rice... it is a grass seed LOL and doesn't taste anything like rice or have the texture of it.

i like my rice white.

[Lloyd Smale]

Oh yeah.
In the old days, at the store there was only whole chickens. Now days, 95% of the grocery store display is just cut up parts.
At ours, there is still a small section with a few whole ones, containers of livers, and packs of hearts & gizzards.

When we cook a whole chicken, I get a couple packs of livers & gizzards to go along with it.
I'll tell Mrs. Winger, "Hey, I remembered to get extra guts too".
That way, I get to eat almost all of them. Otherwise, she'll eat more than her fair share.:bigsmyl2:

We make our own dog food too. I'll get a big bag of leg quarters, and 5-6 containers of livers.
I boil & de-bone the chicken, boil the livers separately, mix it all in with cooked rice, then boil down the bones for broth.
The dogs love it, and it's not all full of chemicals and such.

youve got lucky dogs! mine eats left overs and dry dog food.

[Walks]

A friend went into improving his pasture this past year. He put 400 chickens in a fenced enclosure and moved them daily. The improvement in his grass was phenomenal. Between the nitrogen and the ground having no bare spaces this field was 20 % higher yield than then others. I helped him slaughter and process about 300 of those birds. The taste difference between them and pen raised is incomparable. Most were around 5 lbs at slaughter though some may have hit 7 lbs. I boned the breasts, save the thighs and legs for grilling and stew the backs and necks. Gizzards, hearts and wings are eaten also, livers got tossed.
I stew or soup them with carrots, onion, garlic, celery with the leaves and a handful of rice or pasta. Add some 505 Hatch Green chiles to your bowl if you wish.

YOU TOSSED THE LIVERS ?!!!!!??!?!?!??

GREAT GOD AMIGHTY !!!!

My GrandMother's, Mother and all the Aunt's and Uncles would spin in their graves if I did such a thing. We have one of those secret Family recipes for Chopped Chicken Liver that makes My mouth water right now just thinking about it.

[Winger Ed.]

, livers got tossed.


.....Get a rope...

No, wait,,,,,, burn the witch!!!

[dverna]

i like my rice white.

You damn Yooper racist...LOL

[Lloyd Smale]

You damn Yooper racist...LOL

my wife thinks so:bigsmyl2:

[Lloyd Smale]

What a good thread. I am 71 and my folks lived through the Depression and tough times. We did not eat fancy, but we ate well, and my mom was a fantastic cook. People who don't have it easy make do.

Not chicken soup, but my mom would buy chicken livers because they were cheap. Fry them up with onions, peppers and a bit of garlic....YUM YUM YUM. Come inside after shoveling snow and chow down a plate of the stuff with real bread to sop up the juices.

I bet 98% of folks under 40 have never had chicken livers.

im not much on eating innards. My dad loves liver kidneys heart ect. He said growing up his ma had them all (9 kids) convinced because they were smaller they were treats for special occasions. Sometimes they were only for his dad. He said butcher day for large animals was almost like Christmas because for while there was guts to share with the whole family. Even up to the last when he shot a deer the first things he ate was the heart and liver.

[BJK]

We make our own dog food too, about 5 gallons at a time. Thighs are the easiest to debone after 3+ hours of being boiled. Then we add the rest of the ingredients, sweet potato, oats, all sorts of stuff. Our vet says keep doing what we're doing. No tartar in the mouth of our 11 year old dog. I'd add livers but my wife can't stand the smell.

I would walk home from school for lunch and mom would many times have chicken livers, onions and eggs waiting for me. Good eatin'! Many times she'd cook up fricasseed hearts and gizzards. More good eatin'! I haven't had that in 50 years.

[MaryB]

Mom would S&P then flour the chicken livers then pan fry in butter... crispy buttery good eats!

[Winger Ed.]

Mom would S&P then flour the chicken livers then pan fry in butter... crispy buttery good eats!

Some of the 'chicken shack' places near the inner city sell fried livers.
When I found myself in those neighborhoods, I get the big order of them and a family size order of fried okra.

I could eat them until I got sick.
The resulting gas was no big deal when I was still single, but now days I'd have to sleep in the yard.

[MT Gianni]

YOU TOSSED THE LIVERS ?!!!!!??!?!?!??

GREAT GOD AMIGHTY !!!!

My GrandMother's, Mother and all the Aunt's and Uncles would spin in their graves if I did such a thing. We have one of those secret Family recipes for Chopped Chicken Liver that makes My mouth water right now just thinking about it.

I stopped eating liver after a talk with my Dr. It has the highest amount of cholesterol of any meat. Other organ meats are high but liver is 2-3 times what hearts are.

[country gent]

Several bars here had deep fried livers on the menu, they would marinate bread and deep fry them.Very good

[MaryB]

Bars here were all pickled gizzards... never understood the attraction to them... vinegar soaked hunk of pencil eraser...

[Rapier]

I grew up in the Glades on a ranch on lake Okachobee. Nothing goes to waste on a farm or ranch. Did not have much in the way of noodles but plenty of flour and rice.
It is amazing to me how many young people today can not cook, never taught or never wanted to learn.

[Winger Ed.]

It is amazing to me how many young people today can not cook, never taught or never wanted to learn.

My sister was like that when she was young.
At a family gathering, she said something about how she never learned to cook much.
Mom said she tried to teach her numerous times.
Sis said, "Yeah, and I tried not to watch".

[jonp]

I'm not sure how many others do this these days, but every time I roast a whole chicken I make a pot of stock and use it to make chicken noodle soup.

Tonight I roasted a smallish chicken for dinner and now have a big pot of chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove. The smell in the house is amazing. Making the stock, I threw in some black peppercorns, a couple of bay leaves, and sprinkled some Lowry's seasoning salt in it. After I pulled out all the bones, the bay leaves, and all the peppercorns I could find, I diced up some Yukon gold potatoes, Alaskan carrots, celery, and one onion. For noodles, my family likes the wide egg noodles instead of fettuccini or similar.

I recognize that people did this in the past during hard times to make the most of what they had, however, I just love doing it.

It beats the heck out of the canned stuff!

Pretty close but I use Crazy Janes Salt and garlic. Lot's of garlic as I love it.

[jaysouth]

When you cook a whole chicken, pick the bones clean and brown in the oven with some onions and carrots. Cover with water and add meat scraps, bay leaf and peppercorns. Simmer for 4-5 hours. Freeze in serving size containers for future use.

My daughter buys two whole chickens at Aldi every week and boils them with two pounds of rice. Then she adds two cans of unsweetened pumpkin. She picks the meat off and mixes in the rice and pumpkin. It feeds her two dogs for a week. They do not have to be coaxed to eat.

[Noah Zark]

Count me in with the soup makin's crowd; it's been customary in my family to make "turkey carcass soup" on Thanksgiving, and "ham soup" at Christmas and Easter. Great Depression carryover behavior, along with washing sheets of tinfoil for re-use, and keeping a can of bacon lard on the back of the stove. But I digress.

I take all of the roaster pan drippings, the turkey carcass (except the neck and sline bones; i hate fishing them out), and add chicken broth and water and simmer for a couple-few hours. I let it cool overnight either ohtside or in the garage if its </= 40F, then skim most of the hardened fat the next day, reheating, and adding vegetables, spices, noodles, and barley. It always all disappears.

For the ham soup, I again start with the pan drippings which themselves started as a mix of 1.5 cups orange juice and 1/2 cup brown sugar that was heated in the MW to melt the brown sugar, then gets poured over the ham after shallow crosshatch cutting the meat top and bottom. The sugar/ juice mix gets trapped in the cuts and adds flavor, and takes up ham juice flavor during reheating the precooked ham.

To those pan drippings I add diced "end cuts" of the ham, and maybe another diced 3/8" - 1/2" thick slice or two, a large can of tomato sauce, and two large cans of crushed tomatoes with juice, ground clove, a bay leaf or three, and let that simmer a few hours, adding water to maintain level. Then in goes elbow macaroni and barley, sometimes with cubed potatoes, sometimes with a can or two of Goya black beans. Continue simmering until the noodles are soft and hydrated, serve. My youngest hates tomatoes but manages to Hoover up her share of ham soup, and there's never any that gets tossed away either.

Noah

[gbrown]

Yeah, I have 6 or 7 quarts of chicken broth in the freezer. Every time I boil a chicken, or get a rotisserie one, save the carcass, use trimmings from green onions, a carrot, the trimmings from celery, and some dried green peppers and boil it up. Pour thru a sieve into quarts and cool and freeze. Gumbo base, chicken and noodles, chicken pot pie, and the list goes on.

[Bmi48219]

I stopped eating liver after a talk with my Dr. It has the highest amount of cholesterol of any meat.

We used to butcher a hog every year in early spring. The liver got sliced up and roasted medium rare over a wood fire before we were finished cleaning up. A massive infusion of cholesterol once in a while isn’t too bad.

[MaryB]

The body needs some cholesterol for proper brain function!

[jonp]

The body needs some cholesterol for proper brain function!

Thats why Vegans are so crazy MaryB. You need fat in your diet

[BJK]

Dittos. Folks wintered in and eating rabbit for meat would go insane since rabbit is so low in fat, it's called cabin fever. Once they start to consume fats they return to normal (I think).

I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail, but we've been lied to about fats and LDL and HDL. I started to study it due to heart disease. Common knowledge is dead wrong on the subject. Lied to by agencies we are supposed to be able to trust. But politics and the $ have corrupted the people who we are supposed to be able to trust. Who are they? The FDA, the Heart Assoc', food companies, the media (yeah I know, what a surprise that the media would lie). But the truth is out there if you dig.

[Lloyd Smale]

Bars here were all pickled gizzards... never understood the attraction to them... vinegar soaked hunk of pencil eraser...

never cared for any pickled meat. Its like sucking on a jar of vinegar. About the only pickled thing i like is pickles. Cholesterol? Nothing tastes better:p

[MaryB]

Dittos. Folks wintered in and eating rabbit for meat would go insane since rabbit is so low in fat, it's called cabin fever. Once they start to consume fats they return to normal (I think).

I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail, but we've been lied to about fats and LDL and HDL. I started to study it due to heart disease. Common knowledge is dead wrong on the subject. Lied to by agencies we are supposed to be able to trust. But politics and the $ have corrupted the people who we are supposed to be able to trust. Who are they? The FDA, the Heart Assoc', food companies, the media (yeah I know, what a surprise that the media would lie). But the truth is out there if you dig.

Why I only use natural fats in most of my cooking(deep fryer gets corn oil... semi natural...), butter, bacon fat, chicken fat(try this for fried potatoes!), and even beef fat. I have jars of all in the fridge and when I clean a chicken or trim a beef roast the fat goes in a baggie in the freezer until I have enough to render down. Render it, cool some, pour into jars before it sets up. Keeps in he fridge for a couple months or a year in the freezer.

I don't use as much as my grandparents did working the farm, but in smaller amounts it is actually healthier than all the fake fats made via a chemical process.

[GrayTech]

I watched my grandmother do it often, always good soup. I tried but I must have boiled it too long, when the back fell apart I was picking those little bones out every bite.If that ever happens again you can toss it in the blender, bones and all.

[oldscool]

MaryB
You need to try some duck fat. There is some flavor.

[MaryB]

MaryB
You need to try some duck fat. There is some flavor.

I ate way to much duck and goose growing up. With 7 of us hunting it was a constant diet in fall and early winter. To this day I cannot stomach it, nope, no thanks!

[BJK]

Mary I understand your aversion, but for the rest of us... Duck fat is absolutely delicious!