I'm sure we all know the basic concept of making chicken broth, right? However, I know that I quite often forget to do it when I am cooking chicken. Well, here is a great reason why saving that broth is a great frugal tip: It makes a lot of broth in very little time for very little money!
Think about this: A carton of chicken broth can cost upwards of $3. That is for about 4 cups of broth! Sure, we can get it on a BOGO sale- and that is fine, stock up when it is cheap. But it is SOOO nice to have broth that didn't cost you any extra $!
Here is what I did tonight: I bought a rotisserie chicken on sale at Kroger for $3.99 for dinner. I cooked that, a bag of Birds Eye frozen white corn (FREE) and cut up a cucumber (50 cents!). Dinner for my family of 5 (keep in mind that my kids are 5 and under) cost about $4.49, or 90 cents/person. Here are my steps for making broth out of that chicken:
1. After I cut up the rotisserie chicken, I filled a pot with water and stuck the carcass in there, covered it, and let it boil while we were eating dinner.
2. It boiled for a while, and then I let it cool a bit and poured it into some glass measuring cups (I poured through a strainer so that none of the fat/skin/etc. was in the broth- only the broth went through).
3. I measured it out  (1 cup increments) into ziploc bags, closed them, and stuck them in the freezer.
 
I got about 8 cups of broth for the cost of 1 chicken that we ate for dinner anyways! That is almost equivalent to 2 cartons of broth, or about $6 in savings! So, we saved more cooking the chicken for broth than we actually SPENT on tonight's meal! (And when you add up the savings from everything else we ate for dinner...that's a pretty huge savings!). Now we have 8 cups of broth in the freezer, divided into small portions for easy defrosting, and ready to add to soups, mashed potatoes, rice, or a million other dishes that could use some flavor. :)
Anytime you boil chicken (I often cook chicken and shred it for homemade chicken pot pie) you can reserve the water for broth. Add some onions or leftover veggies for added flavor. Easy! Cheap! Go for it. :)
(oh yeah, and the ziploc bags were 50 cents/box, so those were cheap too!)
 


Comments

Kim
05/19/2010 09:58

Homemade broth is also healthier...it doesnt have AS much sodium as the packaged ones do to preserve them. Plus, homemade just tastes better!

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Kelly link
05/27/2010 04:15

I make chicken broth in the crockpot, freeze it in a 1-cup muffin pan, then put the frozen blocks in a ziploc bag. That way it's ready to put in the pot without having to thaw first!

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