Please help me figure out which of these costs less

[happy_wife_&_mama]

I want to go with the option that costs less, even though one will be much more work. I'm trying to figure out if prepared chicken broth or making chicken broth costs less.

So here are my figures. 48 cups of prepared organic free range chicken broth will cost me $26.50

Or I can make my own broth and have the chicken meat left over. The best price I have available to me right now is .99 cents a pount for a Foster Farms whole chicken at Costco. How much broth (cup wise) will I get from chicken if I buy the same dollar amount that the ready made broth costs me? In other words, if I buy 26 lbs of chicken which should cost me $26, how much broth will I get from it? I have to take into account the veggies too that I'll have to buy to make it. I figure, that although Foster Farms chicken is not the same as organic free range broth, I will get the benefit of having all that chicken meat ready for meals.

If I knew how much broth would be yeilded from an average size chicken, I could figure this out myself, but I've never paid attention.

thanks in advance mamas

[melissel]

Hmm, interesting. I've been thinking about the same thing, actually, because I recently made stock from a leftover carcass, and that was a lot of extra work, time, and cost in veggies and gas. I've been wondering whether the organic, free range broth I can buy at Costco (it's a good brand, I can't remember which) would be just as cost-effective and less work.

So I'm :

Oh, ETA that many would say that the actual health benefits that you'd get from making your own pure bone broth might outweigh any additional cost.

[polyhymnia]

I have neither the time nor the storage space to make my own broth, so I buy the organic or free range (can't remember which, but I know it can't be both...?!) stuff from Costco, it's in kind of goldish packaging with green writing if I recall. Not the most frugal thing, I'm sure, but it works for us ;(

[jennlyn]

Never done this with exact measurements, but you should get at least eight cups of broth. Our standard way is to cut up the chicken into quarters add celery, onion, carrots, salt, pepper and any other seasonings you'd like. How much broth you get depends on how much water you put into the pot with the chicken. It concentrates as you cook it down. I prefer to make ours as then we have both meat and broth. I find many commercially prepared soups to be too salty for my taste. You can also skim off the fat after chilling the broth if you don't want the added fat. I view the broth as a by-product of cooking the chicken so I don't really view it as an expense as we'd be buying the chicken to eat anyway. It's just a matter of how to cook it.

[chinaKat]

If you are really trying to save a buck, there's always bouillon cubes.

Probably not the healthiest way to eat, but super cheap...

[ChattyCat]

Well, it seems like an avg. chicken is about 4-5 lbs. So, if you cook approx. 5 pots (let's say a standard stockpot size) of 5 lbs (25 lbs of chicken total) of chicken in 4 qts (16 cups) of water each. That'd be about 80 cups of water (5 pots x 16 cups), minus whatever boils off, that turns to broth while you cook the chicken. So, I think you come out way ahead with cooking the chicken yourself to make broth.

[happy_wife_&_mama]

I didn't know that Costco sells organic broth. Maybe mine doesn't carry it. Do you think that non organic, non free range, most likely battery farmed chickens from Foster Farms would make better broth (healthwise) then store bought organic, free range broth? It has no geletin in it whatsover it seems. Where the homemade foster farms chicken broth does have some geletin action going on. I might just have to do the test. :

[KariM]

I can't answer the exact questions you aked, but I can tell you how we make chicken stock.

We use a huge stock pot and put in two roasted chicken carcasses. That is just the bones and whatever meat is left after you carve the chicken meat off of it.

We add in a pound of carrots, a bunch of parsley, a few onions, and about half a bunch of celery.

I let that simmer for 4-6 hours.

After that we remove the vegetables and compost them. We take out the chicken carcasses and trim off any remaining meat. Usually, though, the bones are bare at that point.

If we want clear broth, we'll use cheese cloth and strain the stock through that (over another big bowl). We will save any meat for another recipe.

Then we pressure can the stock. The yield for one big stock pot full is seven quarts of prepared broth.

So, for us - two chickens plus assorted veggies yields seven quarts of broth/stock. Seven quarts is roughly 28 cups. To get your 48 cups of broth, I'd make two big stock pots full and use 4 chickens and assorted veggies.

ETA: Here's the recipe we began using and have altered it a bit over the years:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/reci..._23730,00.html

[savithny]

Well, my Fannie Farmer cookbook calls for 2 pounds per 8 cups of water for "Chicken stock," and 4 pounds per 8 cups for "Rich chicken stock."

That means the non-rich stock works out to a pound per quart. That doesn't includ onions and the rest.

YOur 48 cups of purchased stock are 12 quarts.

Okay, so at a pound per quart, that's 12 pounds of purchased chicken (24 pounds for 'rich'), or anything in between-- I'd probably go with 15-18 pounds of chicken).

You'ld also need, IMO, an onion, a carrot, 2 celery stalks, and several cloves or garlic per quart. (That's a minimum - there are plenty of other tasty soup veggies, but those are standards.)

That works out to:
2 bags of onions,
a 5-pound bag of carrots,
at least 2 bunches of celery
2-3 heads of garlic.

I'd probably want at least a dozen bay leaves, and a bunch of whole peppercorns as well.

Price all that out and you'll have a better idea of the comparison.

I don't actually like boiled chicken meat all that much, except in soup, so I make my stock out of what's left after I roast chicken or turkey. You can turn every roasted chicken carcass into soup, or save them in the freezer and make a big batch in a giant pot. I also save my mushroom stems and onion and garlic peelings for stock. With carcass stock, I don't feel bad about not getting every last scrap of meat out of the pot after I've simmered it... but you don't get as much stock per pound of original bird, I think.

[Benji'sMom]

Originally Posted by ChattyCat

Well, it seems like an avg. chicken is about 4-5 lbs. So, if you cook approx. 5 pots (let's say a standard stockpot size) of 5 lbs (25 lbs of chicken total) of chicken in 4 qts (16 cups) of water each. That'd be about 80 cups of water (5 pots x 16 cups), minus whatever boils off, that turns to broth while you cook the chicken. So, I think you come out way ahead with cooking the chicken yourself to make broth.

That's what I do - 4 qts of water per chicken.

[melissel]

Originally Posted by happy_wife_&_mama

I didn't know that Costco sells organic broth. Maybe mine doesn't carry it. Do you think that non organic, non free range, most likely battery farmed chickens from Foster Farms would make better broth (healthwise) then store bought organic, free range broth? It has no geletin in it whatsover it seems. Where the homemade foster farms chicken broth does have some geletin action going on. I might just have to do the test. :

I checked, and the kind I got at Costco was Pacific Foods--that's the expensive brand at my Whole Foods. I want to say I bought a case of six 32-ounce cartons for around $10--I THINK, but I remember thinking it was a really good deal at the time, because I can usually get them for $2.50 on sale at the regular grocery store. So that's, what...like, $1.70 per carton...$0.42 per cup.

Costco doesn't always have the same things every time I go (every few months). That may be why you haven't seen it. I was so excited to find it last time! Also, don't forget to factor in the cost of the cooking gas. I've been told that I need to boil down a carcass for at least 5 hours--I imagine that would be more for a whole chicken, meat and all.

I'm really hoping someone can figure out the calculations, because I'm already :

[Irishmommy]

Originally Posted by KariM

...We will save any meat for another recipe...

Wouldn't the meat be pretty void of any nutrition at that point?

[KariM]

Originally Posted by Irishmommy

Wouldn't the meat be pretty void of any nutrition at that point?

Interesting question, but I don't know the answer. I would think that it would be missing any water soluable vitamins, but have no idea if other nutrients cook out. I'm pretty certain the protein doesn't leach out, but I could be mistaken.

[wonderwahine]

i think it depends on how much chicken broth you are using, for me, the time and meat cost vs buying the organic gluten free chicken broth, the store brought was cheaper.

[BetsyS]

In my house, chicken broth is an extra, "free" food.

I buy chicken on the bone, exclusively. We mostly like roasted chicken, either plain or taken off the bone and used in recipes. For some recipes, I bone the chicken.

I keep two bags in the freezer. One is for raw chicken bones, from when I bone chicken. This bag also gets wing tips from when I make wings. The other is for cooked chicken bones, from when I roast chicken. (I don't know if you can mix them; it feels funny, so I don't ) The only extra work this adds is that I take the meat off the bone before I serve it. Not a big deal.

When I scrape carrots, trim celery, or peel an onion, I take all the trimmings and put them in one of the bags. When the bags gets full, I make stock. I tend to make either raw or roasted, but that's just because that's how it works out. I'm sure you could mix the two.

I fill up the stockpot with water, put my freezer bag in, add a little salt, and simmer all day. Voila, I have yummy broth. And, while the gas for the stove is some costs, it is still way cheaper than bought stock.

[bigeyes]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

If you are really trying to save a buck, there's always bouillon cubes.

Probably not the healthiest way to eat, but super cheap...

Ew. Too much salt, soy and MSG. But there is also Organic Better than Bouillon stock base. Just to add to the confusion. That's my solution to the healthy/additive free/cost/storage problem. Kitchen Basics makes an additive free shelf stable packaged stock, but it's really expensive, so Better Than Bouillon is my easiest/cheapest alternative.

You also have to take into consideration the cost of produce you add to the pot.

I still think homemade is best, but for reasonably inexpensive and fast without a lot of added junk, Better Than Bouillon.

[bigeyes]

Originally Posted by KariM

I can't answer the exact questions you aked, but I can tell you how we make chicken stock.

(snipped)

ETA: Here's the recipe we began using and have altered it a bit over the years:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/reci..._23730,00.html

Wow. Gotta love food network.

[jennlyn]

We only cook the chicken until it is done- an hour or so, that way energy isn't a big factor. I am not a huge fan of boiled chicken ( though when my grandma made soup, the adults all ate what I called the "soup" chicken without hesitation) so I use the cooked chicken in recipes that call for cooked chicken.

[jennlyn]

I forgot to mention that a bit of vinegar added during the cooking time helps leach the nutrients from the bones.