Slow Cooker Chicken Stock

A slow cooker is a wonderful tool to prepare delicious, nutritious foods in big batches! Preparing your own stock in a slower cooker is easy, saves money buying packaged stock, and adds nutrients to your foods instead of using water.

I like to carve up a whole roasted chicken and portion out the meat into snack bags to store in the freezer. When I need chicken to add to a wrap or just eat on its own with some veggies, these come in very handy!

Rather than throwing the bones into compost, I freeze them too until I have enough to make homemade chicken stock in the slow cooker. I then use the chicken stock to cook other things that week and freeze the extra to use over the next few weeks or months.

Slow Cooker Chicken Stock

Ingredients:

• Bones from 2 roasted chickens (keep in freezer after carving until needed)
• Optional: vegetables, such as:
  • Carrots (1-2 per chicken)
  • Onions (1-2 whole onions per chicken)
  • Celery (2-4 stalks per chicken)
• Optional: bay leaf, thyme, garlic, fennel, pepper, parsley, etc

Directions:

1. Chop up vegetables.
2. Place chicken bones, vegetables, and spices in slow cooker and add enough water to cover (can fill up to about 1 inch below top of slow cooker).
3. Cook on “low setting” for 8-12 hours.  You can cook even longer if you like (up to 24 hours).
4. Turn off slow cooker and pour everything through a strainer into a large bowl.
5. Place bowl in fridge to cool.
6. Once the stock has cooled, remove the thin layer of fat that floats to the surface.
7. Pour the cooled stock into smaller containers to store in the fridge or freezer.  Make sure leave space at the top of storage containers for the stock to expand if freezing!

Notes:

• Use your homemade stock instead of water or store-bought stock to make soups, stews, rice, beans/legumes!
• If you are feeling under-the-weather, drink a cup of warm stock to support your immune response!

For more recipes, check out my Recipes page!