Making It Work: Chicken Day

Sometimes life isn't ideal. Let's face it, most of the time it isn't! So, we do what we need to, to make things work. In my "Making It Work" posts, I share life hacks and ideas that have helped me so that, maybe, they can help someone else too. I hope you enjoy!

 Who doesn't like to get something for nothing? Especially when it comes to high quality ingredients that we use all the time in the kitchen!?! Today, we're talking about broth, chicken broth. For years now - over a decade really, I've made it a point to make my own. If you buy it at the store it's ridiculous! For one thing, you have no control over the ingredients they are putting into it at all. For another, the "better" the brand the higher the price! Today, at Fred Meyers, for a quart - just 4 cups - of Kettle & Fire chicken bone broth you'll pay $15. FIFTEEN DOLLARS!!! What if I told you that you could get broth just as tasty, with ingredients as good or better, for no money - just time and effort? Interested? Let me tell you about chicken day!

 Ok, chicken broth requires chicken, and chicken isn't free. I get that. When I say free, I'm referring specifically to the broth though. I figure the money I paid for the chicken goes to the meat I'm using in meals. Buying chicken on the bone is almost always cheaper, and the bones add flavor and moisture to the mean, so it's a win-win! There are a few ways you can go about this. One is to just grab a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken at Costco for $5 and go to town. Alternately, you can get a big pack of bone-in legs from whoever has it on sale (Fred Meyers does this a lot in the $1.99/lb range). Finally, what I typically do for a chicken day, is to buy the 2-pack of whole organic chickens from Costco. The better quality you start with, the better your result, so I think springing for the extra few cents a pound for organic is worth it. 

 

 If you buy the rotisserie chicken, you can skip this next cooking step. Otherwise, let's break out the instant pot! If you want to be really bougie, you can season up the chicken and cook it in the air fryer, oven, or on the grill. It will be tastier that way for future meals, but for me, typically, convenience beats flavor so I lean towards using one pot, my Instant Pot, for the whole process. Less dishes. Less mess. Just less! Can you do this without an Instant Pot? Yes. It will just take a lot longer, a whole lot longer. 

Step 1: Cook the Chickens

 Turn on your Instant Pot to Sauté and let it heat up. When it's ready, throw in a spoonful of coconut oil, or avocado oil, whatever high-heat oil you have on hand. Season up your chicken the way you'd like it while the pot is preheating. I like to use Costco's Kirkland Signature No-Salt Seasoning, with a little salt added in 😂. When the pot is ready, plop the chicken in breast-side down for 2-3 minutes. This gets a little sear on the skin and makes it nice. Pour in 1 cup of cold water to help loosen the chicken from the bottom of the pan, and aide in the pressurization, and then flip the chicken over. Close the lid and cook for 30 minutes. Yes, 25 is probably fine, but every once in a while it comes out under done for me at that time and so I usually just go with 30. When the time is up, let it sit for 10 minutes and then release the remaining pressure (natural release). Remove the Chicken to a large bowl to cool. Pour the liquid into a container for later (there will likely be more than the 1 cup you put in there since the chicken will release liquid), and repeat the process with your second chicken (saute, oil, water, flip, close, cook 30 minutes). About twenty minutes later, your cooked chicken should be about ready to debone:

 This is what my deboning station setup looks like. I'm a squeamish meat cooker so I always like to use gloves when touching it. You do you. I take the chicken from the bowl on the left and separate it into a bowl of bones and a bowl of meat. The meat gets cut up into bite-sized pieces to be used in salads and casseroles. I typically get 2 meals worth of meat (about 4 cups) from each chicken. If I started this about when I recommended above (20 minutes into cooking the second bird), I'm usually done by the time the second gal is ready, so she slides right into the bowl on the left that was just vacated by her sister. I package the chicken into meal-sized portions (2 cups) in a quart-sized freezer Ziploc and put them away for later. I often leave one bag in the fridge for that day's dinner. It's nice to have a good chicken soup at the end of chicken day! 

Step 2: Start the Broth

 Finally, we get to the broth part! Once the Instant Pot has been completely emptied from the second batch of chicken, all those bones from the bowl on the left get dropped right in. And now for the controversy. ACV or no ACV? Recipes and sources all over the internet will tell you to add 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (ACV) to your broth at this point. The theory is that it aids in extracting minerals from the bones, making your broth more gelatinous. Lab testing doesn't entirely prove out that theory, the differences were minimal at best. It does add flavor and depth to your broth, though, and it certainly doesn't hurt. So, you decide what you want. I do it sometimes, and sometimes I don't. Then, fill your Instant Pot to the max line with GOOD QUALITY WATER. This is not the time to stick it under the tap! I use a Berkey water filter, you use the best water you have available. I also add in a good spoonful (teaspoon?) of high-quality salt. You don't want to over salt it, and you can definitely add more later, but a little salt at this stage enhances the flavor dramatically. Close the lid and cook this on manual for 60-90 minutes (depending on how much time you have available in your day, the longer the better). You can do a "quick" release on this when it's done, no meat to worry about seizing up, but it will not be quick. Be ready to wait a good, long time for this to depressurize! Set up a strainer over the largest pot you have (I use a giant stock pot, like 2 gallons) and pour the contents of the instant pot through it, catching the bones in the strainer. Great news, you're not done with them yet! Chicken bones can be used multiple times for extracting broth and still get great quality. According to Kitchen Stewardship (one of my favorite resources), you can get about 3 batches of chicken broth out of each set of bones. She labels them according to strength and uses them separately. I take more of a mid-approach and I combine all my batches together. I don't usually go for 3 batches per carcass, what I typically do is a standard batch like I just described with the first set, then I add in 1/2 a bag of freezer veggie scraps (more on that in a minute) to the second cook with the first carcass, then I add in the second carcass in the third batch of broth, and the other 1/2 of the bag of veggies in the fourth batch - if I get that far. To be honest, I usually peter out after the third batch, but that gives me about four gallons of broth which is plenty to last me for a long time. Oh, and don't forget to debone that second chicken once it's cooled!

 So, what are these veggie scraps of legend? This is more of that fabulous free stuff I was telling you about! You know how, when you're cooking dinner or preparing a salad, pieces of veggies get cut off and tossed? Maybe the stems and seeds from bell peppers, the root ends and skins of your onions, the end pieces, and even greens, from your carrots, cilantro stems? Yep, I save all that. I keep a gallon-sized Ziploc in my kitchen freezer and all my veggie scraps go into it. Then, on chicken day, I throw about half of the bag into two different batches. This adds vitamins, nutrients and FLAVOR!!! It's amazing, I promise you, and it costs you nothing. Super. Simple.

Step 3: Boil it Down

 Ok, as you're going along, you've been pouring that yummy broth into your stock pot on the stove.  Why would we do that? Because four gallons of broth takes up A LOT OF ROOM. What I do is boil it down to about 1/4th of its original volume. Right away, you're going to get that baby simmering. First, though, WRITE DOWN HOW MUCH BROTH YOU PUT IN. You may have to measure this, I am blessed to have measurement markings on my pot. Make sure you add in the liquid from cooking the two chickens as well. I usually get about 1-1.5 gallons out of each 8qt Instant Pot batch of broth, but I always double check. Then I heat the broth in the pot up to a boil and turn it down to simmer. You'll want to check it every 30 minutes or so and not let it go below 1/4 of its original volume. Modern wisdom would have you "skim" the broth periodically to remove any debris. I'll be entirely honest, I don't do this and my broth is really good, but maybe it would be better if I did? Then, when I add the next batch, I make a note of how much liquid got added and how much my new 1/4 total volume should be. So, for example, my notepad might look like:

Batch #1 - 1.5 Gallons, boil to 6 cups

Batch #2 - 1.5 gallons, boil to 12 cups

Batch #3 - 1 gallon, boil to 16 cups, 1 gallon

 You see, with each batch I ADD the new amount to the total boil down. Keeping an eye on that for the rest of the day, when it gets to about the amount you'd like, you can transfer the pot to your kitchen sink that's been stopped up. Add ice all around the outside of it, and then fill the sink, not the pot, with cold water, to cool. Then, and here's the genius part of the system, I pour over the broth into ice cube trays. I've found that my classic, old ice-cube trays hold exactly 1 oz in each cavity, so that makes this all work like a charm. I can store my broth in 1/4 of the space and then rehydrate it by using 1 cube + 3 oz of water for 1/2 cup of broth or 2 cubes + 6 oz water for 1 cup of broth. Often, I'll just use the 6oz button on my Keurig for this! Once the cubes are frozen, they go into a gallon-sized freezer Ziploc, I usually end up with 2 of these because cubes take up more space than liquid. 

 

Here's the Thing: Chicken day isn't going to change your life, but it could make it a little better! For one day's work, much of which was just turning something on for two hours, I get four gallons of high-quality broth. Remember the Kettle & Fire? That's nearly $250 worth! And I know what went into it. It's handy. It's available any time I want it. I often use the cubes straight in things for extra flavor!