You’ve read about beef bone broth, but what about chicken? I’m excited to tell you that chicken bone broth is even easier than beef bone broth!
Not only is it easier, it has a much milder flavor, and can be used in a variety of recipes as a replacement for water, or milk.
And to sweeten the deal, it’s WAY CHEAPER than beef bone broth too! With just one whole chicken, we have enough food for 10 meals!
My husband is determined that we drink/eat bone broth everyday. He’s right, of course, it’s an amazing super food, ridiculously good for you, and fairy cheap to make…
However, at the moment the beef bone broth was a bit too expensive for our current tight budget, so I needed to find a way to make this nutritious food while staying inside our means!
I’m happy to say that I found that balance with chicken bone broth!
Just one grass-fed, organic, whole chicken makes enough bone broth, and yields enough meat for 20 servings of chicken noodle soup!
The price breakdown while be different depending on how much your chickens cost, but for us, that breaks down to less than $1.00 per serving!
That’s so cheap!! And it’s a great dish to keep your family growing in all the right ways.
Related: This six month meal plan saved our family $7,800 last year!
Chicken Soup with Canning Instructions
This recipe can be made and eaten right away or canned for later.
Just look at how beautiful it is sitting on my pantry shelves (along with a few other things, like potatoes, apple butter, and strawberry jam).
- 1 Whole Chicken, Organic, Grassfed (3-5lbs)
- 1 Cup carrots
- 1 Cup celery
- 2 Onions, small-medium
- 1.5 Gallons filtered water
- Bake the chicken in the oven until the internal temperature reaches at least 165°. Be sure to test multiple areas to make sure the reading is accurate!
- Once the chicken is fully cooked, strip as much meat off the bones as you can. We don't worry about keeping the meat "pretty" because I just cut it up for the soup anyway.
- Store the meat in the fridge until the bone broth is finished.
- In a large stock pot, combine at least 1.5 gallons of filtered water and all the chicken bones. You don't have to break these up in any way, just add the whole carcass to the water.
- Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium and maintain a low roll for 6-8 hours. As the bone broth boils, scrape off any foam you see develop on the top. This can cause the bone broth to be bitter and taste "dirty".
- Strain finished bone broth to remove bones. Pour the bone broth back into the large pot.
- Grab the meat that you removed from the chicken and chop into soup size pieces.
- Chop up 1 cup of each carrot and celery, along with 2 small white onions.
- Add everything to the pot and cook over medium heat until the veggies are soft. Salt and pepper to taste.
- Cook noodles on the side and pour the soup over them when ready to serve. Keeping the noodles separate helps to keep them from soaking up all the broth and getting soggy!
- Now that you have your bones out of the broth, place the bone broth in the fridge. You'll need to let it cool until the fat rises to the top.
- If you can it with all the fat still in the bone broth the fat might creep up the sides and break the seal. And no one wants that!
- Once the fat has solidified on the top, scoop it out and either save it for a different dish, or throw it away. Place bone broth back on the stove and return to slow boil.
- Chop carrots and celery until you have 1 cup of each, chop 2 small-medium onions and mix the veggies in a bowl or measuring cup. Chop chicken into small pieces and keep separate from the veggies.
- Prepare jars as in the Pressure Canning Tutorial.
- Add 1 cup of veggies and 1 cup of chicken to each jar until all is gone.
- Pour hot broth over mean and veggies until jar is full. Leave a 1 inch headspace.
- Process at 10lbs pressure for 90 minutes as described in the Pressure Canning Tutorial.
I really love that bone broth, something that would have been part if our grandmothers daily round is making a come back. It always makes me feel good to know I have used very last scrap of the chicken! I really like the photos of your pantry, it must be lovely seeing all the fruits of your work Lined up in your pantry!
Doing things the way they were for generations feels so good to me too! Knowing that my 10 month old son loves bone broth and that he will grow seeing that as an everyday part of our lives makes me very happy!
I can’t wait to start teaching to can! Thank you for coming over! (I really love my pantry too :- ) )
HELP! I ordered 20 lbs. of beef shank bones to can beef broth with and they gave me 20 lbs. of beef shank steak liookng things. The bones are only about 1 tall and ALL the meat is still attached. It looks more like little round steaks with the bones in. Could I cut the meat away and can it like stew meat or perhaps make your beef veg soup with it to can? How do I make the broth now with all these little bones? OH, GEEZ! PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME! Thank you in advance!
Hi Bingi!
It sounds like you got the perfect bones for bone broth! Not to worry, just head over to my bone broth for beginners post (it’s in the slider at the top of the page, just scroll till you see it) and follow those instructions.
If you want to can it, you can do it just like the chicken broth in this post, or you can freeze it!
You don’t have to cut the meat off, just follow the bone broth for beginners guide and you’ll be all set! Let me know if you need any helps at all!!
Hi, I would really like to tryyour recipe for canned bone broth chicken soup. I am new to pressure canning. I nitice you have left out any grains or starches? Can these be used in pressure canned soups or is it best to leave them out? Would love your input. Thanks!
Hi Joanne! How exciting that you’re getting started with pressure canning! I hope you love it as much as I do!
It is recommended to leave out grains and starches because of the way it changes the ph level of the food. This can cause bacteria growth and so on…
Plus, it would just get all soggy and gross from the high heat of pressure canning. I usually add in the noodles fresh for each meal, or if I’m adding in potatoes or something, I just open a jar of potatoes only and add them in 🙂
Hopefully that helps! Have fun!