Whole Chicken Soup Stock – Recipe

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Making your own chicken stock (or any kind of broth, really) is amazingly effortless, especially if you own a pressure cooker! I threw this recipe together after butchering a naughty hen from our egg layers – you can see more about that experience in my Homestead Diary – but you can use any whole, raw chicken you pick up locally or from the supermarket. If you’re looking instead for an easy weeknight dinner recipe, be sure to check out my Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup!

The key to making fabulous broth is using the best ingredients. I have never tasted better bouillon than the batch that I made from this summer’s dinner scraps, straight from the garden! Try to use the freshest whole ingredients you can find and the steam will do the rest. It’s that easy!

In this strange day and age there has been a consistent shortage of pantry staples in local supermarkets; but as long as you can find fresh chicken you can always make your own stock at home. Any excess can be frozen or pressure canned for long-term storage.

Whole Chicken Stock

Whole Chicken Stock

Prep Time 10 mins Cook Time 120 mins Total Time 2 hrs 10 mins
Servings: 1

Description

Dunk all these wholesome ingredients into a pressure cooker for a fantastic, easy soup base!

Ingredients

Cooking Mode Disabled

Instructions

  1. Combine all ingredients in the instant pot. Add enough warm water to bring the liquid up to the fill line. Pressure cook for 1 hour on HIGH. Allow pressure to natural release.

  2. Using a sieve lined with cheesecloth strain the broth from the mixture into a large bowl or pitcher. Spoon off any excessive fat from the top of the broth when it settles. Reserve the meat from the whole chicken for another meal, if desired. Discard bones and vegetable scraps. Immediately use the broth or prep for canning/freezing. This recipe should yield about a gallon of broth.

Keywords: broth, chicken, soup, stock

2 responses to “Whole Chicken Soup Stock – Recipe”

  1. […] I’m not sure if this is typical of an older laying hen but I noticed both when I was dressing the carcass and after cooking it down that it was excessively fatty. There was a copious amount of fat underneath the skin as well as surrounding the organs, and this was all floating in a half-inch thick layer after the stock was done. I scooped most of it out to keep for the dogs along with the skin and some of the less desirable pieces of meat. After stripping and shredding all the good meat from the bones I strained the stock, squeezed the remaining juices from the vegetables using cheesecloth, and put everything in the fridge to wait for dinner the next night. To see what I included in the soup base see my recipe Whole Chicken Stock. […]

  2. […] I’m not sure if this is typical of an older laying hen but I noticed both when I was dressing the carcass and after cooking it down that it was excessively fatty. There was a copious amount of fat underneath the skin as well as surrounding the organs, and this was all floating in a half-inch thick layer after the stock was done. I scooped most of it out to keep for the dogs along with the skin and some of the less desirable pieces of meat. After stripping and shredding all the good meat from the bones I strained the stock, squeezed the remaining juices from the vegetables using cheesecloth, and put everything in the fridge to wait for dinner the next night. To see what I included in the soup base see my recipe Whole Chicken Stock. […]

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About Me

I’m Elizabeth, the creator and author here at The Whistling Rooster Homestead. I’m building a homestead from scratch in the mountains of North Idaho with my dear husband and our highly capable kid. I love to share our experiences here on the blog and I hope you enjoy them too. Thanks for stopping by!

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Last updated: March 2026

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