Homemade Chicken Broth

I've putting off an exciting recipe for quite some time now, and it's because I didn't have any chicken broth. And honestly I've known that I can make my own at home for quite some time (if I had enough chicken bones), but I've never been able to acquire the correct amount of bones to do this so it never crossed my mind to actually buy some chicken broth or save my bones in the freezer to try it. Now, as of last night I have about 4 pounds of chicken bones! I think that sounds like enough to make some homemade broth, don't you? Well, Haroon, I'm going to finally make your Ramen tomorrow night!

This recipe looks super simple, but making chicken broth is kind of hard. Maybe I was just super exhasuted when I made it so it made things 10x more difficult, but it took me a few tries and a bunch of frustration. Take all of your chicken bones, put them in a very large pot. Put in all of your spices and garlic cloves. Then cover everything in cold water, be sure to put enough water in the pot to cover all of the bones with a little bit of head room. Then put it on medium heat and let it come to a boil. Once it's boiling, let it simmer for an hour and a half.I'll be completely honest with you guys, my first attempt at this was an absolute disaster. Leave it to me to not reduce my heat enough and cook off all of my broth. After discovering that almost all of my broth was gone, I refilled my pot with water and started again. This time I put it on medium heat and let it go for a good hour, then took it off the heat and covered it to let it cool.

After it cools, take a slotted spoon and take out the big hunks of bone and garlic. Don't worry too much about getting all of the spices out, the next straining step will get that out.

Grab a large bowl, and a mesh strainer. Line your mesh strainer with 4 layers of kitchen paper towels. If you have cheesecloth, that is absolutely much more preferable to using kitchen paper, but in a pinch this works just fine. Pour your broth slowly into the paper lined strainer and lift it up to let everything drain on it's own. Once all of the liquid seems to have drained from the papers, round it up and squish all of the broth that's lingering behind. Now is the perfect time to taste your broth and see if it needs anything. Mine was a little bitter so I added a bit more salt and a splash of lemon juice to cut the bitterness and it worked great. Keeping in mind that this was my second time around with already cooked bones, your stock will come out a lot thicker and way more flavorful than mine. But if it happens to be too bland for your taste, use it to put into other recipes rather than using it as a recipe in itself.

I hope you guys liked tonight's recipe, if you have any tweaks or found something that worked better for you I'd love to hear about it! Enjoy :)

Ingredients
Leftover chicken bones (I saved mine from last night's chicken bake)
2 large cloves of garlic
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
A splash or two of lemon juice
Cold water to cover the bones

1.) Put all of your bones, spices, and garlic into a large stock pot. Then pour your cold water into the pot, making sure that it covers all of the bones.
2.) Put over high heat and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to produce a consistent simmer. Simmer for one and a half hours.
3.) After one and a half hours, turn of the heat, put a lid on the pot and let it cool for several hours.
4.) Once the pot has cooled entirely, remove the lid and using a slotted spoon, take out all the chicken bones and big solids that you can. Don't worry too much about the smaller stuff, the next step will take care of that.
5.) Once all of the big solids have been removed, place a fine mesh strainer over a large bowl, place a three or four layered kitchen paper towel in the strainer. Pour the broth through this makeshift cheesecloth device and allow it to strain in sections. Now your broth is ready to use!