Chicken soup for the... everything!
The weather may (finally!) be turning from snow to rain here in Victoria, but we're definitely still in soup season. There's nothing better in the winter than curling up with a steaming bowl of soup - thick winter stews, veggie chillies and anything with a winter squash base are some of my favourites.
I'm also a HUGE fan of a good cup of bone broth, and with good reason: bone broth has a number of health benefits that are the real deal.
Even though bone broth has been around for hundreds of years, it kind of fell out of common practice here in the west after the 1950s. While it's seeing a massive resurgence, some folks still see the roasting, boiling and simmering of beef bones as a bit beyond average kitchen activity.
Which is why I always recommend making chicken bone broth!
Roasting an organic chicken on a Sunday night is the perfect way to cap your weekend, and then, thanks to the miracle of slow cookers, you can whip up the base for a tasty soup in almost no time. Chicken bone broth provides almost all the same benefits as beef, plus it has the added edge of being a major comfort food from most of our childhoods.
I did the whole process (roasting & soup-ing) last weekend - check out how I made my chicken bone broth below!
Chicken Bone Broth in the Slow Cooker
Ingredients:
- 1 organic chicken carcass (pick off the majority of the chicken meat - you can add this to the soup later)
- One onion, roughly chopped
- 3 medium carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
- 3 stalks of celery, roughly chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
- 1 tbsp each dried rosemary & thyme (2 chopped tbsps each if fresh)
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Directions:
Place all ingredients in slow cooker.
Fill 2/3 full with water.
Turn on low and let cook for 12 hours (overnight is the perfect amount of time).
That's it!