RECIPE: ROTISSERIE CHICKEN SOUP (Make for nearly Free)

Recipe Submitted by Rick Beach

Rotisserie Chicken Soup

Do you purchase the ready-made whole Rotisserie Chicken’s from Costco, Sam’s Club, or your local grocery?  With this recipe you can actually recoup the whole cost from what most people throw away in the garbage.  

When you bring the chicken home, slice off, pick off, and remove, as much meat as you normally would.  Separate the meat you will use for eating, salads, and sandwiches. Save all of that in zip lock bags.

Save all the bones and carcass with the remaining meat still attached you can’t easily get to.  The parts normally pitched in the garbage.  We normally throw away most of the skin, but small amounts can be kept.  Skin will create fat and enhance the taste, but is then skimmed off and discarded.

Once this soup is made, check out how much the equivalent costs in the store. Store bought soup will never taste this good.  Rather than throwing away what you normally do not use, take about 2 hours and prepare yourself some delicious homemade chicken soup.  It is nearly fool proof.

8 inch Dutch Oven, or 8 inch stock pot

Ingredients

Rotisserie Chicken carcass and bones
10-12 Cups Water
4-6       Carrots large sliced
4-6       Celery Stalks sliced
1 Tbls   Dry Cilantro Flakes
½ tsp    Garlic Powder (or 2 Fresh cloves peeled and diced)
Salt and Pepper to taste
½ Cup Barley (Uncooked)

Prep

In the pot place the chicken carcass, bones, and any meat scraps.  Add the water, Sliced Carrots, Sliced Celery, Cilantro Flakes, Garlic Powder, Salt, and Pepper.  When adding the water leave enough room to boil.  Ideally, all or most of the bones will be covered with water.  Any additional water can be added near the end of the whole cooking process.

Bring water to a rolling boil.  Reduce heat and Cover.   Simmer with heat just at boiling to avoid boil over.  Simmer for 30 minutes.

At this point most of the meat is falling off the bones.  Pour entire pot contents into a large sieve catching the clear broth in a larger bowl or pot.

Return the clear broth to the pot and add the uncooked barley.  Cover pot and adjust heat to simmer.

Start simmering the broth and barley.

In the meantime, spread out the cooked chicken bones and cooked veggies, on a foil lined cookie sheet to aid in cooling. Once cool enough to touch.... Using a fork, tongs, etc. pick out all the bones and discard.  You should have a pile of chicken pieces, cooked carrots, and cooked celery.  Go through the pile a second time to insure there a no small bones. (This total process takes 10-15 minutes)

Add the pickings (meat and veggies) back into the simmering broth and barley mixture.

Cook stirring occasionally another 60 minutes, or until the barley is thoroughly done.

Skim off any excess fat floating on the surface.  Add additional water to make 10-12 cups.

Enjoy!  This is some tasty chicken soup.   The best part is it is nearly free to make.

You can also run this through a blender and freeze in 1 cup containers, or freezer zip lock bags.  Then use as chicken broth in any recipe.  A trick here is to pour into plastic ice cube trays to freeze.  Then pop them out and freeze in gallon zips lock bags.  Then you can take out as many as you need for use on a future recipe.