Yuri, which chicken is best to make chicken broth from - whole or fillet, thighs, legs?
I prefer to make chicken broth from a whole chicken. For a standard kilogram chicken you need to take five liters of water. You will get 3-4 liters of chicken broth. But if a whole chicken is too much for you, use a chicken leg. But you won’t be able to cook a rich, strong broth from breast or fillet.
How to treat chicken before cooking?
The most important thing is to remove the feathers or their remains. And the insides - kidneys and lungs, they make the broth cloudy and foamy. Therefore, remove all the insides and rinse the chicken thoroughly with cold water. Cut off excess fat so that it does not accumulate on the surface of the broth during cooking. After all, during the cooking of the broth, the process of emulsification of fats occurs, and the broth may turn out cloudy.
What vegetables can you cook chicken broth with?
Traditionally, carrots are added; they need to be chopped randomly. celery stalk, onion and one or two champignons. Add mushrooms whole. You can pre-bake all the vegetables on the stove - then the broth will turn out to be a beautiful amber color. If the stove is electric, you can fry immediately on the surface of the burner; if it is gas, place the vegetables on a dry, hot frying pan. Vegetables should be baked, but not charred. Burnt, they will only give bitterness.
What about herbs and spices?
For spices, it is better to add black peppercorns and bay leaves. My favorite herbs are dill and parsley. The leaves can be torn off, chopped and left to decorate the broth, and the twigs can be added during cooking. If you have dried dill umbrellas, add one. Dill goes really well with chicken - it enhances the taste and gives off aroma!
What is forbidden to add to the broth?
Those that have a strong aroma: cloves, allspice. They take away the taste of the chicken.
At what point should you add spices?
After the broth boils. You need to skim off all the foam and excess fat and then add vegetables and spices. If there are a lot of spices, put them in a small piece of gauze, wrap them and put them in the broth. Then they will be much easier to remove.
But the controversial question is: should the foam be removed or not?
I agree, controversial. For example, my teacher adhered to the idea that it is not necessary to remove the foam. She said that along with it, the nutrients that come out of the chicken during cooking are also removed. And I agree with her. You can cook a clear and tasty broth with this foam, the main thing is that the broth does not boil too much. This foam then turns into a thin film and sinks to the bottom. When the broth is strained, not a trace will remain of it. The film also contains taste qualities, and nutrients. So it’s not entirely true when they advise removing the foam without fail.
Is it better to cook covered or without?
It is better to remove the cover. Under the lid, the broth begins to boil strongly, and it is not convenient to constantly control the boiling strength.
What is the secret to the transparency of the broth?
If the broth does not boil strongly ( after it boils), but it will only sway slightly, then it won’t be cloudy. It will be transparent. The main thing is to cook on the slowest, slowest heat. In general, the transparency of the broth is a matter of aesthetics. What could be more beautiful than clear chicken broth, with croutons and a boiled egg! However, if you prepare a sauce based on chicken broth, then transparency, of course, is not necessary.
When to salt the broth?
Depends on what you want to get as a result - delicious broth or delicious chicken meat. If the goal is to make a tasty broth, it is better to add salt at the beginning, as soon as the water begins to boil. So that during the cooking process, not only water-soluble substances, but also salt-soluble ones come out of the chicken into the broth. If you want to get delicious boiled chicken, add salt at the end when the broth is cooked.
Why is it recommended to remove boiled vegetables after cooking the broth?
It's simple: the vegetables are already cooked long time, have given all the taste, color and aroma into the broth, and their further presence in the broth makes no sense. Therefore, the finished broth is filtered and the vegetables are removed.
How long can chicken broth be stored and should it be frozen?
Chicken broth will last about five days in a well-functioning refrigerator at + 5°C. You can freeze it, but it’s still better to use fresh broth for cooking. Boil the broth and immediately prepare soup or sauce from it.
Healthy chicken broth is good on its own, combined with croutons and a boiled egg, and also serves as an excellent base for further culinary creativity. Fragrant soups, delicious sauces and simple gravies - many of them are based on chicken broth. Therefore, knowing how to prepare delicious chicken broth will not be superfluous.
How to cook chicken broth, how to make chicken broth transparent, when to add salt to chicken broth - these are questions that many, especially beginner housewives, ask. Let's try to find answers to them.
And since in our case there was chicken first :), then we start by choosing it. It is best to cook chicken broth from domestic chicken, a certain breed and not young, but it is not always possible to find one like this, and on store shelves there are young broilers, from which it is much more difficult to obtain a clear broth.
And yet, even in this case, you can achieve a very good result and cook a tasty, aromatic broth. The secret to clear chicken broth is following certain rules. So let's talk about how to properly prepare chicken broth.
Chicken broth recipe with photos step by step
Chop the chicken into small pieces. This will make the broth cook faster. The chicken skin can be removed or left, it depends on what fat content and fat we want to achieve.
Place the chicken pieces in a saucepan and fill with cold tap water. Place the pan on the stove over medium heat. And here is the first secret of delicious chicken broth. DO NOT COVER THE PAN WITH A LID! We simply forget about the lid for the entire cooking time, and remember about it only when the broth is completely ready and the fire on the stove is turned off.
Bring the water in the pan to a boil. When the foam rises, remove it with a slotted spoon. This is the second secret. REMOVE THE FOAM CAREFULLY.
Yes, and be sure to turn the heat down to very low as soon as the broth boils. And this is the third secret. COOK THE BROTH AT THE LOWEST BOILING. As if we were simmering on the stove, under no circumstances allowing it to actively boil. Only then will you get perfectly clear chicken broth. Even 5 minutes of vigorous boiling can ruin your efforts to get clear chicken broth.
By the way, if you cook broth from a store-bought broiler, it is better to drain the first broth. To do this, wait until the foam rises, let it boil for about 5 minutes, drain the water, rinse the chicken pieces with cold water, and wash the pan to remove any foam. Return the chicken to the pan, add cold water again and bring to a boil.
Now add half a teaspoon of salt to the broth and begin to prepare the vegetables. Be sure to cook chicken broth with onions and carrots; it is also good to add white roots: fresh or dried celery, parsley, parsnips. This will give the broth color and a unique aroma. Peel the carrots and onions, cut them in half and bake them in a dry frying pan.
A common answer to the question of how to make chicken broth clear and golden is the recommendation to add onion peels to the broth or to clarify cloudy broth using a strainer. You can add onion peels, but just a little and shortly before the end of cooking, otherwise you can achieve the opposite effect, and the broth will become dark and unappetizing. But the option with a guy wire personally seems irrational to me. Firstly, if you follow all the above rules, you will not need to clarify the broth, and secondly, it is usually used as a guy chopped meat, and this, you see, is an unaffordable luxury.
Add baked vegetables, roots, black peppercorns to the broth and cook the broth until tender.
How long to cook chicken broth depends on the chicken. For a young broiler, 40 minutes is enough, but an old rooster will have to be cooked for 2-3 hours. So we focus on the readiness of the chicken in the broth. At the end of cooking, you can add a bay leaf, but cook it for no more than 5 minutes, and then remove it. Bay leaf is a controversial ingredient in chicken broth, so decide for yourself whether you like this addition. Add the finished broth to normal levels.
Any housewife can cook it. However, as it turned out, this elementary dish also has its secrets..
What to make chicken broth from?
In order for the broth to be rich and have a so-called “body,” it must be cooked from bones. Limited time - use legs, that is, bones with meat. In this case, the broth needs to be cooked for no more than an hour, then it can be used in other dishes. If you use a so-called “soup set” to cook the broth, you will have to spend at least four hours or even more. Connective tissue and collagen contained in bones take quite a long time to dissolve in hot water, so the longer you cook, the richer the broth will be.
The basic set of vegetables that are recommended to be added to the broth is almost textbook: onions, celery stalk, carrots. They should be peeled and coarsely chopped. I don’t recommend putting it in whole; broth from smaller pieces will still absorb more flavor than from whole carrots.
To add another level of flavor, spices are added to the broth: black peppercorns, bay leaves and fresh thyme. Towards the end of cooking (half an hour to an hour), you can add fresh parsley.
Ideally, the proportion of bones to water should be 2:3. That is, for 2 kg of bones you need 3 liters of water and about 1 kg of vegetables. Pour vegetables and chicken only with cold water.
Chicken broth color
What color should chicken broth be?
The basic version of the broth, called "white broth", is made from raw bones. It turns out light, but the taste is not as pronounced as possible. To make the broth richer and have a beautiful golden color, the bones must first be baked in the oven for half an hour, at 180-190 degrees. After this, transfer the bones to a saucepan (drain the fat from the baking sheet, you don’t need it) and cover with cold water. You can also use bones from baked chicken or even grilled chicken for this broth. Vegetables can also be pre-fried or baked. Fry the onion and carrot halves in a dry frying pan without oil.
Low boil
Low boil
Another very important point- this is the boiling level of water. You poured cold water over the bones and put the pan on the fire, but as soon as the water starts to boil, don’t be distracted for long. It is necessary to reduce the heat in time so that a low boil does not develop into a violent one. In this case, the water will begin to actively mix with fat molecules, turning into an emulsion, and the broth will become cloudy. Some of the fat will remain a familiar film on the surface, but the main part will already be inseparable from the broth itself, so if you want a clear broth, do not let it boil! Only weak gurgles are acceptable.
Strain thoroughly
Strain thoroughly
Vegetables and bones that are used for cooking broth, of course, cannot be used for other purposes after this. They gave all the flavor and everything that could be given to your broth, so you can throw them away with a clear conscience. Well, then strain the broth through a sieve. For a beautiful clear soup, strain the broth through cheesecloth to remove even the tiniest bits of protein and other impurities. Please note, however, that some of the fat from the broth will be removed when filtered through thick cheesecloth.
Variety of flavors
Variety of flavors
Chicken, celery and carrots are the basic ingredients from which you can cook the simplest broth. But you and I know that this will not be enough for a passionate cook! If you, like me, always want to experiment and explore all the ways you can extract flavors from different ingredients, use these few tips to help you find the perfect flavor:.
Healthy chicken broth contains a large amount of vitamins and minerals, which are perfectly absorbed by the body. Soups and sauces are prepared from it, it is added when preparing main courses, and served with savory pastries.
The broth is indispensable for colds and flu, after surgery, in case of poisoning, and it is also life-saving remedy from a hangover. Today I will tell you how to cook delicious chicken broth in a slow cooker from the breast and other parts of the chicken and how to do it correctly so that the broth is clear and as beneficial as possible for both sick and healthy people.
Cooking chicken broth
Kitchen appliances and supplies: knife; cutting board; Bowl; slotted spoon; saucepan; sieve; multicooker.
- For cooking, you can use any part of the chicken carcass - thighs, drumsticks, back, neck, breast in any combination. You should not cook broth only from meat, without bones - it will not be rich and aromatic, since the bones contain extractive substances.
- It is advisable to use young, homemade chicken - it will cook faster, and its meat is more tender and healthy. The broth from an old chicken will not be as clear as from a young chicken, but it will be more flavorful.
- For a quality dish, use a chilled carcass, not a frozen one. She should be fairly well-fed, with intact skin, without bruises or bruises.
Step-by-step preparation
- Wash a chicken weighing 700 g - 1 kg, cut into pieces and place in a multicooker bowl. If you use chicken quarters, you need to rinse them, if necessary, remove any remaining feathers and place them in a bowl.
- Peel and wash the onions and carrots. Add the whole onion to the chicken. Cut the carrots into several pieces and also put them in the bowl. Add pepper and salt to taste.
- Pour in 2 liters cold water.
- Cook in the “Stew” mode for an hour and a half.
- To ensure that the broth is clear, after half an hour, open the lid of the multicooker and remove the resulting foam. This is convenient to do with a slotted spoon.
- Using a slotted spoon, remove the chicken and vegetables from the finished dish and strain the broth. Vegetables will no longer be useful to us, since they have already given away all their useful material. And from the chicken, we separate the meat from the skin and bones and cut it into pieces. The meat can be served with broth, or can be used to prepare other dishes, such as chicken salads, or as a filling for pies.
Using broth
- It can be served as an independent first course with boiled noodles, sprinkled with chopped herbs before serving. For serving, use special deep bowls with two handles or broth mugs with a volume of 250-500 milliliters.
- This dish is also served with croutons, savory pies, toast.
- Can be used as a base for many first courses and sauces, and can also be added to stews of meat and vegetables.
Recipe video
To properly prepare delicious and aromatic chicken broth, I recommend that you watch this video.
- Before starting cooking, you can add a few peas of allspice and parsley root to the water for flavor.
- If you plan to give the broth to your child, then make it as low-fat as possible - boil the chicken without skin, and after cooking, blot the surface of the broth with a napkin to remove excess fat.
- To make the broth even clearer, drain the first water immediately after boiling along with the foam, rinse the chicken and fill it with water again. Then prepare the dish as usual.
- Using the same recipe, a delicious turkey broth is prepared. You can cook it either in a slow cooker or in a saucepan on the stove.
Other first course options
If you or your family are lovers of first courses, then I advise you to prepare soup in beef broth with vegetables or cereals, as well as in chicken broth. The soup made from dumplings with broth is also very tasty, which, moreover, is prepared very quickly and easily.
I shared with you all the secrets of delicious chicken broth that I knew myself. If you have your own options for preparing this dish, share them in the comments. I would also be grateful for your additions and options for using the broth. Thanks for stopping by and Bon appetit!
In many countries, chicken broth is one of the most common dishes. Therefore, young housewives quite often ask the question of how to properly cook chicken broth so that it turns out tasty, nutritious and has an unsurpassed aroma. We will talk about this in this article.
Chicken broth has long been considered “miraculous”: it dietary dish It accelerates the blood well in cold weather and helps to quickly restore the patient’s strength. It is light on the stomach, and therefore not only adults, but also children love it.
Thanks to the rich composition of chicken meat, dishes made from it are very beneficial for the body. Chicken broth is indispensable for viral and colds, disorders of the stomach and cardiovascular system because it contains:
- Amino acids;
- Peptides;
- Minerals (protein, potassium, iron, magnesium);
- Vitamins (A, B, E).
To enhance the taste and richness of healthy elements, you can add vegetables to the broth.
We will initially tell you about classic recipe preparing this culinary creation. In particular, you will learn how long it takes to cook meat and how to get a clear broth.
Where to begin?
Before describing the process itself, how to cook chicken broth, it’s worth saying a few words about the main ingredient. In this case, it's chicken. It is better to purchase fresh poultry meat. In this case, preference should be given to laying hens. Large broilers are not very suitable for preparing such a dish.
To make your chicken broth delicious, it's best to use all parts of the bird. If you don’t have this opportunity, you can cook it only from the breast, wings, or drumsticks. In this case, the cooking process will be significantly reduced. Many people cook the chicken whole. But in this case, it is worth considering that it will take much more time.
As for the proportions of meat and water, the water should cover the contents of the pan by 3-5 cm.
Often, advice on how to make chicken broth contains specific information. So, for example, for 1 kg of chicken meat it is recommended to take about 3 liters of water. As previously mentioned, you can take both the carcass itself and its individual parts. For example, breasts are suitable for a light dish.
Cooking options
Classic recipe
This recipe will tell you how to easily and quickly cook chicken broth. To prepare the dish you will need:
- 1 kg of chicken meat (whole bird or breast);
- 1 medium onion;
- 1 small carrot;
- 1-2 bay leaves;
- salt;
- 2.5-3 liters of water.
The meat should be washed and placed in a pan with cold water. After which, it is put on maximum heat. Reduce heat as soon as the water boils. This is necessary to obtain a clear broth. It is also worth removing the film that floats to the surface so that the broth does not become cloudy.
Cook the chicken broth with the lid slightly open. Vegetables and bay leaves must be added to it about 30 minutes after boiling. How long it takes to prepare such a dish depends on the form in which you prefer to use the meat. But in general, the cooking process after boiling takes 1.5-2 hours.
Spicy broth with spices
To make chicken broth not only tasty, but also aromatic, try cooking it with spices. You will need: 1 bay leaf, 0.5 tsp. thyme, 2 dried cloves, 3 white peppercorns and 3 black peppercorns. If desired, you can prepare a bunch of fresh herbs to decorate the dish.
The main ingredients you need to take are:
- whole chicken weighing 1 kg (or chicken breasts half with wings);
- 1 medium sized onion;
- 1 large carrot;
- about 3 liters of water;
- salt (sea).
Place a saucepan with meat filled with cold water over medium heat. When the water boils, it should be drained, the meat should be rinsed thoroughly and poured with a portion of fresh cold water. This way, when ready, you will have clear chicken broth with a golden hue.
When boiling, the film should be removed. After boiling the chicken for about an hour, you can add salt, spices and vegetables to it. After adding additional ingredients, the dish continues to cook until done for another 30-50 minutes.
"Grandma's" recipe
This recipe is not as popular these days as the previous ones. However, the benefits of a dish cooked according to this recipe have been tested over the years. It perfectly helps restore the patient’s strength and relieves general state for a cold. Such a culinary creation will allow girls to saturate their bodies without losing their slim figure. Using the secrets from this recipe, you will be able to cook the perfect chicken broth: tasty, aromatic, transparent and with a golden hue.
Required ingredients:
- 1 kg of chicken meat (breasts, wings or whole bird);
- 1 medium onion;
- 1 large carrot;
- 1 parsley root;
- 1 celery root;
- salt, ground black pepper - to taste;
- a bunch of any fresh herbs;
- 3 liters of water;
- quail eggs(for serving, at the rate of 1 piece per 1 plate).
The chicken can be placed in hot water, which after boiling will need to be drained and replaced with a fresh portion, meanwhile rinsing the meat and the container itself. This time, the water must be brought to a boil over low heat, constantly removing the film.
Vegetables can be added to the main ingredient 30 minutes after the water boils. It is necessary to add salt and pepper at this stage. It is better to add the bay leaf 10 minutes before the end of cooking.
To ensure that your chicken broth is clean and clear, it is better to strain it when ready.
Many experienced housewives can easily and quickly cook tasty and healthy chicken broth. But not all of them may know how to prepare it correctly. We offer several secrets that will help you cook successfully perfect dish with a wonderful aroma.
Before cooking, the bird should be divided into separate parts (wings, breasts), and rinsed thoroughly under running cold water. To make the broth transparent, at this stage all veins (cartilage, skins) should be removed.
Ideally, healthy chicken broth is prepared from a soup kit. It is recommended to cook chicken breasts separately for those who want a light broth. This also determines how long the dish will take to cook.
If you want the broth to be clear, do not let the water in the pan boil continuously. It is better to cook the chicken over low heat and with the lid ajar.
When it is not possible to purchase poultry, the broth can be made golden by adding a washed, peeled onion to the meat during cooking.
This culinary creation can be served with fresh herbs and crackers. If desired, you can add carrots, which the meat was cooked with, or a pre-boiled egg.
