Farm fresh chicken broth

Frozen Chicken to Fresh Canned Chicken Broth ready for the winter!!!

Lets face it, ready or not winter is coming. Which in Western New York, means spring-like weather to on the set of Frozen in a matter of an hour. This is also the time of year where the kids go back to school and bring home all of their friends germs. In our house, the most used ingredient during the winter months is chicken broth. We use it for soups, flavoring mashed potatoes, chicken potpies, and so much more. This year, I have made it my mission to use the fresh ingredients we have grown on the farm to nurture my family. Including using our pasture raised chickens to make this broth. Our chickens are given a fresh plot of grass everyday. They are free to eat all of the grass, grubs, and insects their little hearts desire. We believe that happy animals will provide our family and the families we serve with the highest quality meat.

As a busy Stay at Home Mom and farm owner, I love easy recipes. I can't afford to be slaving over the stove all day. But, I want to feed my family the best, using freshest ingredients.  This recipe was so easy to do. Here is how in 10 minutes worth of work, an Instapot, and a 3lb frozen pasture raised whole chicken fresh from the farm, you can have fresh canned chicken broth.

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 Your Ingredients
3 Lb Frozen Whole Chicken
7 Stalks of Celery
1/2 bag of Baby Carrots
Whole yellow onion
Sweet Basil
Salt and Pepper
Water
InstaPot

Begin by placing the grate within the InstaPot inner pot. First, place frozen whole chicken on the grate. (I made the mistake of putting all of the vegetables under the chicken in first. While the broth still turned out amazing, the InstaPot overflowed during depressurization. It made quite the mess).

Next, cut up the vegetables. I cut the celery stalks in to 3-4in sections. Then, sliced the yellow onion in to quarters. Add celery, carrots, and yellow onion to pot by surrounding the chicken.

Lastly, add water. The water should cover the chicken. Make sure there is at lease 2-3 inches from the top to the pot. If not, depressurization will be eventful. At this time, I also added my seasonings. In this instance I diced up some fresh sweet basil, Pink Himalayan salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste. You can play with the spices.

Put the top on your InstaPot. Set it for 1 hour and 20 minutes, on the soup/broth setting, the pressure should be set to high. Lock it down and sit back.

When it is completely depressurized take off the top. Using the grate arms, (not seen here as it was misplaced) to pull out the chicken. If you do not use the grate, it will be more difficult to remove the chicken whole. I used 2 serving spoons to help remove the chicken. Set the chicken aside for right now.

I used another stockpot and strainer to separate the vegetables from the broth. In this instance I only want to can the broth so I can use it in other recipes. If you want to keep your chicken within the broth you will have to use a pressurized canning technique.

After I have just the liquid in the stock pot, I use a funnel and fine mesh strainer to put the broth in the canning jars. The fine mesh strainer helps to further separate the larger particles of vegetables and chicken out of the broth to give us a clean broth.

While filling the jars leave a little room at the top of the jar. In this case I used pint jars but you can use whatever size you desire. To save some hassle, sanitize your jars a head of time. Make sure you sanitize the jars to avoid bacteria growth after canning.

Add the liquid to the while still hot. Put the lid and ring on, as the liquid cools down the jar will self seal. You will notice in about a half hour your jars will start making popping noised signifying they are sealed. If you are not sure if your can has sealed, you can test the top by pressing down on the middle. If it pops down then it did not seal properly and you will need to attempt to reseal it.

Lastly, we tackle the chicken. I like to hand shred the chicken, then freeze the meat. In this case I divided it into 2 and put it in quart freezer bags. I will use this later in the week to make Chicken Wing dip and Chicken Quesadillas.


I hope that you enjoy this recipe as much as I do. Comment below what you use your chicken broth for!!! As always keep an eye out for more blogs on our crazy Farm!

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