Does anyone boil the bones of their chicken or turkey?

[franmarz]

After the family has finished the carcass, I usually boil the bones, then freeze the liquid. Now that we are having cool-cold weather, its the best time to make a great family recipe of soup or stew.

[The empressof all]

1. Of course

I always save the chicken carcass. I pop them in the freezer and when I have 4 or 5 of them saved up I pop them in the pressure cooker with some onion, celery, salt and pepper. I then strain and freeze for soup, sauces or adding to rice.

I do the same with a Turkey Carcass. The best part of Thanksgiving are the left overs.

[Love Bug]

7. How long do you pressure cook them for?

I have a pressure cooker and could be using it for this! Thanks.

[The empressof all]

8. I usually do about 30 minutes minimum

If you keep it on low you can go for an hour or more. The longer you cook it the richer the stock gets. The trick is to leave it on as low as possible to maintain the pressure.

I find when I use the pressure cooker and cook the heck out of it, it's better to strain the broth through cheese cloth or a very fine mesh strainer as the bones get very soft and break into fine pieces.

(On Edit) Don't forget to add some fresh flat leaf parsley to this. It gives a great flavor.

[NMDemDist2]

2. yup, the top shelf of my freezer door is full of small glad containers

of turkey/chicken broth

like EoA i add some veggies while the broth cooks then strain it and frreze it

i use it for soup base or cooking rice

[Hans Delbrook]

3. I use Alton Brown's recipe for Turkey Soup

Every year after Thanksgiving. I almost skipped it this year but I couldn't stand to waste all that meat and flavor. Come the crazy days of Xmas I was glad to have that in the freezer.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. If you do chicken stock, you may also want to try your hand at

fish stock. Get the bones (and heads and skins, too, if they're nice and fresh - which they likely are or else they'd smell **real** bad) from a fish store if there's one near you ... or the fish department of your grocery store if they cut fish there (sadly, most do not do that any more). Also use lobster or shrimp shells, heads, innards, whatever. That's where all the good flavor is.

[denverbill]

5. Definitely.

We buy whole chickens and I cut them up. The back, neck, wing-tips, and sometime the wings go into plastic bags in the freezer. Every 2-3 weeks, we have plenty to make broth. We don't use it for soup very often. We mostly use it in other recipes.

[SW FL Dem]

6. Nothing better than homemade broth

from the Thanksgiving turkey or a Cosco rotisserie chicken!

[fortyfeetunder]

9. Absolutely ya betcha

I cook my turkeys in a Weber kettle only, and the smoked bones are just heavenly cooked to a broth.

Then I add some wild rice, some brown rice and some of those Normandy veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, squash, and carrots) and a can of chopped tomatoes. I am in heaven...