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 .
When you serve, splash a bit of lemon juice in your bowl; it tastes amazing!


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[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.