Have you just roasted a chicken(or duck, turkey, any kind of bird!) for dinner, and you’re about to throw the carcass in the trash? You’ve been throwing all those onion skins and vegetable ends into the trash? Stop! You can still make use of those bird carcasses and veggie scraps. Making your own chicken or vegetable stock is incredibly easy, but it does take several hours.

Here are instructions for how to make a tasty soup stock.

Note: If you’re a vegetarian or just don’t have any bird carcasses laying around, simply omit the carcass and add extra veggies to your stock.

Ingredients
1 or more chicken carcasses and leftover bones (optional)
carrots
onions
celery
whole garlic cloves
peppers
your favorite herbs and spices, fresh or dried both work fine (I like to add rosemary, thyme, and marjoram but you can add whatever herbs are your favorite!)
salt & pepper to taste

Keep in mind that the veggies will get thrown out or composted after the stock is done, so if you’d rather avoid wasting whole veggies just save up a bunch of the ends of carrots, onions, etc. as well as things like onion skins to use for making stock later.

1. Chop the veggies into quarters, and leave any skins on. Garlic cloves can be left whole.
2. Throw the chicken carcass(es) and all of your veggies, herbs, and garlic into a large stock pot. Add just enough water to cover all of the ingredients.
3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and let simmer uncovered for approximately four hours. If any foam rises to the surface, skim this off. After the stock has had time to simmer, you can add salt & pepper if necessary(avoid doing so at the beginning so that you don’t over-salt your stock).
4. When you think that the flavor has developed enough, remove the chicken carcass(es) and strain out all the vegetable matter. Put this vegetable matter into your compost!

Now you have a pot of delicious, homemade chicken or veggie stock. You can either make soup right away by adding chopped veggies, beans, or anything else you’d like and simmering until the veggies are soft, or you can put it into a container to refrigerate for later. If you’d like to save it for a long time, toss it in the freezer and thaw out when you’re ready to use it.