I’m not the kind of person who usually slaves over a hot stove making my own stocks but I do love the flavour of homemade stock. It is so easy to make your own chicken stock from a rotisserie chicken and here’s how.

There’s not usually much leftover from a store bought supermarket chicken. I can usually get about 3 or 4 meals from just one chicken. When it gets to this stage, I know it’s ready to be made into stock.

I remove any meat left and save it for sandwiches, pies, a mornay sauce or soup and remove any seasoning (stuffing).

Recipe

Into a saucepan I cover the carcass with water and add a large chopped carrot, an onion (no need to remove the skin), celery (if I have it), dried herbs like thyme and salt and pepper.

Boil for about 15 to 20 minutes and strain into a sieve ensuring you have a bowl to catch all the stock. You can also do this in the slow cooker on low for about 2 hours. (Don’t worry. I’ve strained the stock straight over the sink a couple times right down the drain.)

Your stock is now ready to be used for any dish. It’s that easy. You can put 1 cup quantities in a ziplock bag and freeze for dishes down the track. Freeze into ice cube trays or the whole lot into a freezable container. I was planning soup for this lot so I kept it in the fridge until the next day when I made soup. Homemade stock has such a wonderful, deep, rich flavour. I normally use stock powder but there really is no comparison. You should give it a try sometime.