Skin in your chicken broth

[forestrymom]

I've been making broth for some time, and it never occurred to me, but do you put the skin in the broth when you're making it?

[lynsage]

When I make chicken soup or stew, I put the whole chicken in, skin and all, boil it until it falls apart, strain it through a colander, pick the skin and bones out and add the meat back into the broth. I start with a roast chicken because I find it more flavorful that way.

[Lit Chick]

Same here - skin goes in.
Roasted skin and bones are the best for soup, so be sure to save it if you make a chicken.
My lazy soup trick is to use a store-bought roasted chicken, pick the meat off, boil the skin and bones in good store-bought broth for an hour with some aromatics, then strain it off and add the meat/veg/whatever else back in to finish cooking.

If you want less fat (and less flavor), keep the skin out.

[kjbrown92]

I put whatever is left from the roast chicken that we've eaten for dinner into the pot (skin, bones, meat, etc.), along with onion, celery, bay leaves, etc. Since it cooks for 36 hours, I strain it all out and keep just the broth. The meat isn't that great after 36 hours. Oh, I stick some extra chicken feet in there for extra gel too.

[Teenytoona]

By the time I make broth the skin has long been eaten. that is, unless we bought a whole chicken and we have some attached to random parts of the carcass. But we usually do legs and thighs and just collect bones in a freexer bag... no skin by then.

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by Teenytoona

By the time I make broth the skin has long been eaten. that is, unless we bought a whole chicken and we have some attached to random parts of the carcass. But we usually do legs and thighs and just collect bones in a freexer bag... no skin by then.

:

The skin is the first thing eaten around here.

[philomom]

Sometimes. I usually save the bones from a couple of baked chickens before making broth/stock... so sometimes there's little skin leftover.

[Teenytoona]

Originally Posted by cristeen

:

The skin is the first thing eaten around here.

Yeap - and what's crazier is that my big kids will eat all the cartilege too - it's a wonder I've been getting any gel to my broth! lol

[JMJ]

Well, I certainly don't throw the skin away. If it doesn't get eaten first, it gets thrown in the broth.

[Llyra]

If the chicken's been roasted ahead of time, the skin will give the broth a lovely color.

I only make stock from leftover chicken, not from raw chicken. Good chickens are expensive, and I have to make them stretch to many, many meals. My kids eat most of the skin, but whatever's left goes into the stock.

I have made stock from raw chicken before, though, and I did put the skin in. It contains lots of good fat, and it would be a shame to throw away good food.

[Llyra]

Originally Posted by Teenytoona

Yeap - and what's crazier is that my big kids will eat all the cartilege too - it's a wonder I've been getting any gel to my broth! lol

DD1 is like that. She'll eat literally every teensy tiny scrap of meat and connective tissue, all the cartilage and the little fatty bits, and then spend twenty minutes gnawing on the bare bones. DH says he imagines her as a fierce little cat, when he sees her eat chicken.

[Teenytoona]

Originally Posted by Llyra

DD1 is like that. She'll eat literally every teensy tiny scrap of meat and connective tissue, all the cartilage and the little fatty bits, and then spend twenty minutes gnawing on the bare bones. DH says he imagines her as a fierce little cat, when he sees her eat chicken.

Funny little varmints our kids are, huh? The big kids (they are 8 and 10) always complain about how gross broth is - they don't seem to think gnawing on the bones and cartiledge is gross, just making broth from it. They puzzle me, to be sure.

[harrietsmama]

I'm doing GAPS so roasted is advanced for me. This is how I do broth:

I save all my veggie ends and shred as many veggies as will fit in the pot with the whole chicken, and add feet and extra gelatin - I use Jensen's, and any farm bought eggshells.

I bring it just to a boil then simmer for 3 hours. if it boils too much or cooks to long, it produces glutamates - naturally occurring MSG.

pick the chicken out, strain/mash/squeeze the veggies through cheese cloth.

pick the chicken apart, put the meat in one pile, the bones in another, and the squidgy stuff skin/connective tissue in a third.

I make soups a meal at a time from the broth, meat and new veggies.
the squidgy stuff gets pureed into "pate" and added in.

not as simple, but so much more satisfying when I eat it!

[BeagleMommy]

Why didn't I think to add the good eggshells?
I'll be doing that from here on!

[Ruthla]

Egg shells in broth? I've never heard of that before! Does this give more minerals to the broth? What does it do for the flavor?

I throw out so many egg shells around here, but I'll start saving them if it means more nutrition.

[harrietsmama]

Yeah, it gives minerals to the broth. Just make sure they are from a farm you trust and wash the eggs before you crack them, they are kinda hard to wash after Or your farmer may already wash them, depends

[Ruthla]

Why does it matter so much what farm the eggs are from? If I only use conventional eggs, is it better to not use them in broth?

[harrietsmama]

Egg shells are very porous and most manufacturer type environments clean them with a GMO corn based citric acid spray, not something I wanna eat Also, the large suppliers tend to have more disease stuff hanging around in the chicken poo, which invariably ends up on the eggs.

Now, when I had my own chickens, and I knew what they were eating etc., I wasn't as worried about their poo contamination, because well, I was the one cleaning out their coop anyway so I was already exposed/antibodies etc., but with unknown poo, you need to be more cautious with making sure you clean your eggs.

[harrietsmama]

oh, and fwiw, my chickens would fight over and devour their own shells, but wouldn't touch conventional egg shells.

[Llyra]

I have a vermicomposting system. My worms will happily eat the eggs I buy locally, from several different farmers, but they won't touch the supermarket eggs-- even the certified organic ones.