From One Slow-Cooked Chicken to Jars of Golden Bone Broth

One meal finished. The beginnings of several more tucked away for another day.

There’s something deeply satisfying about getting every last bit of goodness from the food we bring into our kitchen.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a slow-cooked chicken. By morning, rather than throwing away the bones and skin, they went straight back into the slow cooker to become something entirely new - jars of beautiful, golden homemade bone broth.

It really is one of the simplest little kitchen habits.

We cover the leftover bones and skin with water, add a generous splash of apple cider vinegar, and leave it to slowly simmer away. The ACV helps draw all that goodness from the bones while, for the most part, we simply get on with our day.

By dinner time, the kitchen smells incredible.

Last night, while making dinner, we strained the finished broth, poured it into jars, added the date and popped them into the freezer, ready to become the base of future meals. Of course, one jar didn’t make it that far - some went straight into the gravy we were making for dinner.

And don’t throw away that golden layer!

Once the broth cools, you’ll often find a beautiful golden layer of chicken fat sitting across the top.

We scrape this off and keep it in the fridge for cooking. It adds the most incredible flavour to morning eggs and is another little reminder that there can be value in parts of our food we’re often taught to discard.

One chicken, many meals

This is one of those simple homesteading habits that doesn’t require a lot of extra work, but makes such a difference in our kitchen.

A roast or slow-cooked chicken becomes dinner. The leftovers become another meal. The bones become broth. The broth finds its way into gravies, soups, stews, curries, rice and whatever else we happen to be cooking.

Nothing complicated. Nothing fancy.

Just making the most of what we have and putting a little goodness away for another day.

And when there are jars of homemade broth waiting in the freezer on a busy weeknight, we’re always very glad we did.