Bonus Round – Chicken Broth

This is a short series about reducing food waste and saving money. Reducing waste is good for the planet and its good for your wallet and its just a smart way to live, no matter your level of income. One of the bones I have to pick with a lot of the recipes you see today is that they don’t tell you what to do with leftovers or scraps. And if you’re making several different recipes each week, you can be left with a collection of partially-eaten ingredients without a use, that eventually go bad in your fridge.

This post covers how to use up a roast chicken and save time and money on dinner by making your food stretch and last for up to a week. Or skip the roasting and grab one of those juicy hot rotisserie birds you can get at your local grocery. The hard part is already done when the chicken is cooked, fresh and hot, so you can focus on throwing together a quick and delicious homemade dinner.

When I’m cleaning up, I throw any vegetable scraps (onion ends, carrot tops, etc) into a reusable gallon-sized ziplock bag labeled “Stock Scraps” and keep it in my freezer.

Making broth with rotisserie chicken is pretty simple. I like to use my insta pot, but any pressure cooker would work. Or, if you just have a pot and a stove, boil it in the pot for 1-2 hours.

The method has very few steps. With your bag of scraps, there is less than 5 minutes of prep time. Just dump everything into your insta pot and hit the appropriate button.

This is where you’ll utilize that bag of frozen vegetable scraps. Toss in the onion tops, carrot ends and celery leaves from the day you made Chicken Soup into your pressure cooker along with the bones and leftover bits from your rotisserie chicken + 4-6 cups of water. Put the lid on and pressure cook about 45 minutes, while you go about your day. Strain the broth, add about a tablespoon of salt to taste. Serve immediately or let broth cool completely and freeze in pint containers.

Cool the scraps in a bowl on your counter before disposing of them in the compost.