How to make perfect chicken broth and 4 soups based on it

Chicken broth is a must. It can not only be eaten with croutons, but also turned into a base for soup, sauce or side dish. The main thing is to cook it correctly.

What to make broth from

First you will need chicken. The standard is a soup hen, in other words, a middle-aged laying hen. Unlike broiler, it can cook for hours, imparting flavor to the broth without turning into mush. If you still decide to use broiler, reduce the cooking time to approximately 1 hour.

The traditional broth recipe uses the whole chicken, but individual parts of it or just a soup set from any hypermarket are also suitable. It’s not worth using just the breast: the meat may turn out tough and the broth may not be rich.

In addition to the main ingredient, chicken, onions, carrots, celery and seasonings are added to the broth. To give the most saturated color, vegetables can be sautéed in a small amount of oil.

1 kg chicken;
5 liters of water;
1 onion;
1 carrot;
salt, peppercorns - to taste;
greens for decoration.

How to cook broth

Rinse the chicken and place it in a deep pan. The whole carcass does not need to be cut.

Pour water so that it covers the meat. If you want the chicken to be tasty, then add salt right away. If you prefer a savory and clear broth, add salt at the end of cooking.

Wash and peel the carrots and onions. Cut the carrots into several pieces, leave the onion whole or cut in half.

Place the pan over low heat. Make sure that the water does not boil; only small bubbles should form on the surface. This will allow the broth to remain transparent. To do this, remove the resulting foam in time.

During the cooking process, water may boil away, so it should be added.

After 1.5 hours (if you are using broiler chicken, then after 10 minutes), add carrots, onions and peppers to the broth. Cook for another 1 hour.

When the time is up, try to separate the meat from the bones. If it doesn't work, cook some more. If the meat comes away, it is ready - remove the pan from the heat and cool slightly.

Cooked vegetables can be removed from the broth: they have already provided all the useful characteristics. Also remove the chicken. The meat can be consumed in soups, salads and snacks.

Strain the broth through cheesecloth.

The finished broth can be consumed in its pure form or used as a base for soups.

4 soups with chicken broth

1. Chicken noodles with giblets

Ingredients

150 g chicken stomachs;
150 g chicken hearts;
150 g chicken liver;
salt, pepper - to taste;
1 onion;
1 carrot;
½ tablespoon of vegetable oil;
500 ml chicken broth;
50 g egg noodles;
greenery;
2 quail eggs.

Manufacturing

Wash the chicken giblets and remove films. Place any type in a separate pan and fill with cool water. Place on the fire, add salt and pepper and bring to a boil. After boiling, cook the liver for 20–25 minutes, hearts for 40 minutes, and stomachs for about an hour.

Finely chop the onion and carrots. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan, add vegetables and fry them over low heat, stirring constantly. After 2-3 minutes, remove the pan from the heat and transfer its contents to a napkin to remove excess oil.

Place the prepared giblets in a saucepan with broth and bring to a boil. Add the onions and carrots, then the egg noodles. Add the pasta completely or break it into pieces. Season with salt and pepper.

After 3-4 minutes, add finely chopped herbs. When the noodles become soft, the soup is ready. Pour it into plates and place a boiled quail egg in each.

2. Creamy tomato soup with chicken broth

Ingredients

700 ml chicken broth;
½ cup rice;
90 g tomato paste;
500 g of tomatoes in their juice;
100 g cream cheese;
parsley.

Manufacturing

Place the broth over medium heat and bring to a boil. Add rice, tomato paste and tomatoes. Cook for 10 minutes, then add cream cheese and bring to a boil again. Season with salt and pepper. Add finely chopped parsley and cook until the rice is done.

Serve the soup hot with croutons and herbs.

3. Tuscan white bean soup

Ingredients

2 medium carrots;
1 onion;
1 celery stalk;
1 clove of garlic;
3 tablespoons olive oil;
salt, pepper - to taste;
2 cans of snow white beans in their juice;
3 liters of chicken broth;
4 cups spinach leaves;
30 g grated parmesan;
green peas and herbs for decoration.

Manufacturing

Finely chop the carrots, onions, celery and garlic. Heat olive oil in a thick bottomed saucepan. Add chopped vegetables, salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

Drain the juice from the beans, wash and dry. Mash ½ cup of legumes with a fork, add to vegetables and simmer for 2-3 minutes over medium heat. Then add the whole beans to the pan and stir. Pour the mixture with chicken broth, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for another 20 minutes.

Add spinach, rinsed in cool water, to the soup and cook for 2 minutes until the leaves wilt. Remove the soup from the heat, pour into bowls, sprinkle with grated Parmesan, add green peas and herbs.

Serve with crispy croutons.

4. Meatball soup with chicken broth

Ingredients

1 onion;
½ tablespoon of vegetable oil;
2 cloves of garlic;
300 g of any minced meat;
salt, pepper - to taste;
3 liters of chicken broth;
1 carrot;
1 potato;
100 g vermicelli;
1 bay leaf;
greenery.

Manufacturing

Start by making the meatballs. Finely chop the onion and fry in vegetable oil. Finely chop the garlic or put it through a garlic press. Mix it with onions and minced meat, add salt and pepper and stir well. Make meatballs. The size can be any size, but it is better to make small balls, about the size of a quail egg.

How to make savory chicken broth: chefs' tips

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Chicken broth is used in a huge number of dishes. Transparent, light or black, rich broth can act as an independent dish if cooked correctly.

Every cook has his own secret to making delicious chicken broth. Now we will tell you how some popular chefs prepare the broth, and what you need to know so that it comes out not just tasty, but impeccable.

Julia Child's Chicken Soup

Julia Child is a South American chef who was simply crazy about French cuisine. She has written several books about cooking and has become a popular American cooking show host.

And she prepared chicken broth very simply: you need to chop the chicken into small pieces, and also chop the vegetables - onions and carrots. Place them in a saucepan, add butter, bay leaf, fresh parsley and thyme. Pour in cool water so that it covers the chicken by a centimeter and a half. Cook for about an hour and a half over low heat, skimming off the foam from time to time. Then strain the broth, add salt and pepper.

Jamie Oliver's Chicken Soup

We love Jamie for the simplicity of his recipes. For example, for chicken broth according to his recipe, you can take a soup set that contains more bones than meat.

To make the broth according to Jamie Oliver's recipe, you need to put garlic, coarsely chopped onion, celery, leeks, carrots, peppercorns, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, parsley and chicken bones in a saucepan. Pour in cool water and bring to a boil, skimming off the foam. As soon as the water boils, you need to create a very small fire and cook the broth for 3-4 hours, skimming the foam from time to time. Season the finished broth with salt and pepper to taste.

Gordon Ramsay's Chicken Soup

Gordon Ramsay is the most eccentric chef, recognized for his explosive temper, which he displays in the show Hell's Kitchen. His recipe for chicken broth differs from the above in that it first needs to be browned.

In a large saucepan, fry the garlic, onion, carrots, celery, leek, thyme and bay leaf in olive oil. Then you need to add tomato puree and simmer for another minute. Only later put the chicken in the pan and fill it with cool water so that it covers the chicken by two centimeters. Season immediately with salt and pepper. After the broth boils, remove the foam from it and cook for an hour over low heat (for soup chickens, the time will naturally be longer: one and a half to two hours). Then remove the chicken and strain the broth.

Chicken Soup by Heston Blumenthal

Heston Blumenthal is very fond of the scientific approach to cooking. He is one of the proponents of molecular gastronomy and often scientifically explains his recipes, which are quite extraordinary, it must be said. So the chicken broth according to his recipe will turn out completely different than usual - it’s worth making it at least once, just to try it out.

For this broth you will need chicken wings and skim milk powder, amazing, right? The wings must be rolled in milk and... baked in the oven until golden brown. Heston further advises using a pressure cooker, but if you don’t have one, no problem—a heavy-bottomed saucepan will do. You need to put fried wings, carrots, onions, mushrooms in it and fill it all with cool water. Now let's set it to cook - for a pressure cooker it will take two hours, but for a saucepan the time increases: such a broth is cooked on the lowest heat for 4-5 hours! Then the broth must be cooled and strained. It will be black in color and smell like fried chicken - quite tasty!

General Tips

Chef Yuri Bashmakov shared them in his own interview with Gastronom magazine.

To make the chicken broth savory, it is better to use soup chicken rather than broiler chicken. This is a laying hen aged 2 years and above, it is tougher but more flavorful. Well, the broth will turn out to be the most rich and rich. This chicken is cooked for at least an hour and a half.
It is imperative to remove the entrails from the chicken, otherwise the broth will be cloudy. Excess fat also needs to be removed.
To ensure that the broth has a beautiful color, you can lightly fry vegetables over a fire - carrots, champignons, onions. The main thing is not to burn them, otherwise the broth will be bitter and cloudy.
It is best to mix dill and parsley with chicken broth. From spices, you can add whatever you like - bay leaf, pepper, thyme. But it’s better to avoid cloves and aromatic pepper.
You don’t have to remove the foam! The main thing is to make sure that the broth does not boil too much, and cook it over very low heat. The foam contains all the nutrients - later, when you strain the broth, the foam will go away, but they will remain.
To get savory chicken meat, you can add salt to the broth at the end. And for a savory broth, you need to add salt first (as in the recipe from Gordon Ramsay).
The broth can be frozen in portions: in the freezer it will be stored for up to 5 months, while in the refrigerator - only 5 days.

How to make the right chicken broth

Chicken broth is a seemingly simple thing. But even such an ordinary recipe has its own subtleties and aspects. We asked chef Yuri Bashmakov to reveal the secrets of impeccable chicken broth.

Yuri, what kind of chicken is best used to make chicken broth - the whole chicken, or are fillets, thighs, or legs suitable?
I prefer to make chicken broth from a whole chicken. For a regular kilogram chicken you need to take 5 liters. water. You will get 3-4 liters of chicken broth. But if a whole chicken is too much for you, take a chicken leg. But you won’t be able to cook a rich, strong broth from breast or fillet.

How to treat chicken before cooking?
The most important thing is to remove the feathers or their remains. And the insides - kidneys and lungs, they make the broth cloudy and foamy. Therefore, remove all the insides and carefully wash the chicken with cool water. Trim off excess fat so that it does not accumulate on the surface of the broth during cooking. After all, during the cooking of the broth, the process of emulsification of fats occurs, and the broth may turn out cloudy.

Processing the chicken before cooking chicken broth

What vegetables can you cook chicken broth with?
Usually carrots are added, they need to be cut randomly. A celery stalk, onions and one or two champignons. Add mushrooms completely. All vegetables can be baked on the stove ahead of time - then the broth will turn out to be a beautiful amber color. If the stove is electronic, you can fry it right away on the surface of the burner; if it is gas, place the vegetables on a dry, hot frying pan. Vegetables should be thoroughly baked, but not charred. Burnt, they will only give bitterness.

What about herbs and spices?
For spices, it is better to add dark peppercorns and bay leaves. Among herbs I prefer dill and parsley. The leaves can be torn off, chopped and thrown in to decorate the broth, and the twigs can be added during cooking. If you have dried dill umbrellas, add one. Dill mixes really well with chicken – it enhances the taste and gives off a smell!

What is forbidden to add to the broth?
Those that have a powerful smell: cloves, aromatic peppercorns. They take away the taste of the chicken.

At what point should you add spices?
After the broth boils. You need to skim off all the foam and excess fat and add vegetables and spices later. If there are a lot of spices, put them in a small piece of gauze, wrap them up and put them in the broth. They will be much easier to remove later.

Vegetables, spices and seasonings suitable for making chicken broth

But here’s a controversial question: should the foam be removed or not?
I agree, controversial. For example, my teacher adhered to the idea that it is not necessary to remove the foam. It said that along with it, the nutrients that come out of the chicken during cooking are also removed. And I agree with her. You can cook a clear and tasty broth with the foam given to us, the main thing is that the broth does not boil too much. This foam later transforms into a narrow film and sinks to the bottom. When the broth is strained, not a trace remains of it. The film contains both taste properties and nutrients. So it is not entirely correct when it is recommended to remove the foam without fail.

Is it better to cook covered or without?
It is better to remove the cover. Under the lid, the broth begins to boil very quickly, and it is not comfortable to constantly monitor the boiling force.

What is the secret to the transparency of the broth?
If the broth does not boil very much ( after it boils ), but only sways slightly, then it will not be cloudy. It will be transparent. The main thing is to cook on the slowest, slowest heat. Absolutely, the transparency of the broth is a matter of aesthetics. What could be more attractive than clear chicken broth, with croutons and a boiled egg! But, if you prepare a sauce based on chicken broth, then transparency, naturally, is not inevitable.

Such clear chicken broth

When to salt the broth?
Depends on what you want to get in the end - a tasty broth or tasty chicken meat. If the goal is to prepare a savory broth, it is better to add salt first, as the water begins to boil. So that during the cooking process, not only water-soluble substances, but also salt-soluble ones come out of the chicken into the broth. If you want to get savory boiled chicken, add salt at the end when the broth is cooked.

Why is it recommended to remove boiled vegetables after cooking the broth?
It's simple: the vegetables have already been boiled for a long time, they have given all the taste, color and smell to the broth, and their upcoming presence in the broth makes no sense. Therefore, the finished broth is filtered and the vegetables are removed.

How long can chicken broth be stored and should it be frozen?
Chicken broth will last for 5 days in a perfectly working refrigerator at + 5°C. You can freeze it, but for preparing dishes it is still better to use the freshest broth. Boil the broth and immediately prepare soup or sauce from it.

Chicken bouillon

Perfect chicken broth

“What's new in making chicken broth?” you might think. But it turns out that the saying “Live forever, learn forever” did not just arise among the people. At the moment, there are a lot of culinary programs on TV (Television (Greek - far and Lat. video - see; from the New Latin televisio - far vision) - a set of devices for transmitting moving images and sound over a distance) . And in one of them I saw the production of such a broth. It didn’t work out for me, I brought the recipe to life in my own kitchen. The broth in this version comes out fragrant, rich and very nutritious. You can drink it just like that, as a snack with bread. And you can make a delicious soup using it.

Chicken broth with cheese bombs

A few years ago I found a recipe in a local magazine and... I’ve been cooking since then, and everyone in the family undeniably likes it! The number of bombs depends on their size, they always say to me: make more! Paired with chicken broth, it really is quite tasty!

Rassolnik with chicken broth

Almost everyone loves rassolnik. And what types of pickles there are! And with mushrooms, and with kidneys, and without kidneys, and even (I saw it here and there) with fish. Now I was preparing pickle soup with chicken broth. I decided to share the recipe.

Chicken broth with dried dumplings

A little history. I had two grandmothers. One cooked very deliciously, and the second cooked occasionally, BUT what she cooked was recklessly delicious and original during my youth. So, my grandmother's favorite soup from my youth.

Gordon Ramsay's Chicken Soup

You probably think I've lost my mind? After all, who doesn’t make chicken broth? What can you tell us here?? Yes, everyone is preparing. And everything on your own. And yet the least!! Now I suggest you prepare it the way Gordon Ramsay does it.

Chicken broth with dumplings

Tell me, why post such a recipe? The fact is that dumplings are extraordinary, the method of making them is fascinating!

Chicken broth with farfelach and mandelach and chicken squiggles

- Sema, I wish you were dead! Eat the broth, you need to get better! - approximately or practically this is how zealous Jewish mothers treat their sick or overly thin children. Broth has long been revered in Jewish cooking and has long been proudly called the Jewish “aspirin”, for its ability to be easily digested and maintain the strength of a weakened body. And recent studies have confirmed scientists' assumption that chicken broth improves heart health by affecting the size of the heart muscle and the thickness of the walls of blood vessels, without having any effect on blood pressure. Even a coffee cup of concentrated chicken broth, drunk once a day by an adult for a long time, helped restore heart rate. Researchers associate this effect with a specific protein contained in fresh chicken - a peptide. You can’t go anywhere without broth – neither in winter nor in summer! Why are we going to cook the broth? Ordinary, you say. And you'll be right. But we will cook a clear broth without any delays, fill it with farfelah or mandelah, and eat it with puff squiggles with chicken and cheese insides. So how? Sounds good? Then go ahead!

Chicken broth from the freezer

A fragrant and savory broth is the key to the success of any soup, and with our busy lives, it’s not always possible to find time to make it. Let's prepare it in advance, because it can be perfectly stored frozen and will reduce the time for making a delicious soup by several hours.

Semolina porridge with chicken broth

I can't stand sweet semolina porridge since kindergarten. But I LOVE salty chicken broth! It's so delicious. For some reason, no one from my circle eats it or has ever eaten it, and does not realize how salty semolina porridge can be. And like this!;)

Chicken broth soup “For adults”

Delicious! Curious! Why for adults? The recipe includes 1 tbsp. spoon of cognac!

Chicken bouillon . Chicken broth is the simplest, but at the same time very tasty, satisfying and healthy first dish, which looks like clear water with an insignificant green or yellow color. It is also an indescribably valuable product for healing and dietary nutrition, which is unrivaled in helping to recover from serious illnesses and complex operations.

Chicken broth is prepared from meat, cartilage and bones of chickens - its preparation time over low heat is about 2 hours. Fat that forms on the surface of the broth during cooking should be removed.

Broth made from chicken can contain a high content of beneficial minerals and vitamins. This broth is very useful to use when you have the flu or a cold - the cysteine in its composition helps in every possible way to get rid of a cold as quickly as possible, in addition, it dilutes phlegm and promotes its rapid elimination. Chicken broth also helps tremendously during the recovery period after fractures - with its constant use, bone healing occurs even faster. And in people suffering from pancreatitis or hypoacid gastritis, this broth activates the secretion of bile and digestive juices.

Warm chicken broth is an excellent aid for improving digestion - it will have a beneficial effect on the condition of the duodenum and stomach. It is no less beneficial for the health of the cardiovascular or nervous system, and the low-fat broth will be a true boon for anyone who is watching their weight.

Chicken broth is used not only as an independent product - a large number of different first courses, aspic or sauces are prepared on its basis. It is used no less intensively when making porridges or when stewing vegetables.

In order for the chicken broth to be tasty and rich, you should take two liters of water for every kilogram of chicken, and the chicken should always be placed only in cool water. If you plan to add vegetables to the broth, then it is better that their quantity does not exceed 110 g. To make it rich, they use bone-in meat or a whole bird carcass to make it. As for dietary options, it is better to use breast or fillet to make them.

The most delicious broths are those made from poultry, but if store-bought chicken is purchased for their production, then it is better to drain the first broth - this will protect yourself and your loved ones from various harmful substances entering the body.