A recipe for chicken stock in an Instant Pot

A game changer for me personally.

Should this be used (or probably thown away)? Yes.

I’ve certainly mentioned homemade stock around these parts, but now that we’re getting into roast chicken season, it seemed time to outline the one reason (besides making rice) I think having an Instant Pot is worth it: making stock. It’s so much faster than the hours of boiling and simmering on the stove, you still get that delicious stock smell in your house, and you don’t have to stay up all night after you cooked making broth.

Below is my father’s recipe for making stock, typos and all; this is a very traditional stock recipe, in that you actually fully use a chicken to make it. I’m more of a “use what you have” person, as we’ve established, so I make stock when I’ve roasted a chicken and have the carcass.

So here’s what I do:

Instant Pot Chicken Stock

• 1 chicken (or turkey) carcass

• An onion, cut into pieces, skin on

• Garlic cloves, skin on

• Whatever other vegetable is around and probably going bad, very roughly chopped: carrots, celery, leek tops, etc.

• A little salt

• A bay leaf

• Peppercorns

Pick the excess meat off the carcass and snack on it/put it away for later use. Add all your ingredients to the pot and add enough water to cover it all. Put the lid on the Instant Pot, and cook on high pressure for 45 minutes. Once it’s done, manually release until the pressure is fully gone.

Remove and discard the carcass and large bits. Skim the fat etc. that you can off the stock, strain the stock into smaller containers—I use plastic pint containers or Ziploc bags, depending on what I have—that you’ve labeled with painter’s tape. Wait until the stock has cooled some more, seal, and freeze.

As seen above, you can clearly adapt this for pork, lamb, etc. I’ve mentioned my love of bouillon before, but when I can, I like to use homemade.

Donations Time: Last month, $147 went to Diverse Books. This month, donations will go to United Nations World Food Programme which is providing food to families in Gaza and on the West Bank. You can switch your subscription to increase the amount donated each month for $5 a month or $30 a year right here.