Meat stock is one of the most nutrient-dense and nourishing foods you can consume. Meat stock is the backbone of the GAPS diet and a food that has been made and consumed by traditional peoples for many years.
Meat stock and bone broth are two different things and you can read about their differences on my blog here. There are important distinctions if you are venturing into a gut-healing protocol. It is essential you begin with meat stock and not bone broth. Meat stock should be the first-food for healing the gut, bone broth should be the maintenance food once the gut has healed and has tight junctions. Again, go read the differences in my previous post.
I also have a post on how to make your meat stock more gelatinous – we want it to be gelatinous over watery to get all that good collagen out of it. You can read that post here.
Let’s get to it. Chicken Meat Stock is simple. Here is a basic recipe to get you going.
Ingredients:
1 whole, raw, chicken
Filtered water – This is really important. Tap water is not clean and not worthy of your meat stock! Please use filtered water. Also do not use distilled water. Distilled is dead water. It pulls minerals from you. We don’t want that either.
1 Tablespoon sea salt – real salt not iodized salt.
1/8th cup whole peppercorns – these are important and help aid in digestion.
Optional: Fresh herbs like parsley or thyme. Raw veggies like carrot, celery, onion, garlic.
Directions:
Place your whole chicken in a deep pot. I like to spatchcock the chicken and cut down along the mid section, through the breastbone. You can also cut into the wings a bit to break the bone apart. This allows more of the collagen to come out of the bones when you are cooking. This isn’t necessary, but is beneficial.
The 1:1 ratio. For ever 1 lb of meaty bones, use 1 cup of water. If you have a 4 lb chicken start with 4 cups of water. This ratio feels low, however it is the best option to get the jiggly stock you want. You want to be able to see the gelatin (the jiggle) once the stock cools. When you are using a whole chicken you can increase your water ratio a bit because there is a lot of connective tissue in a whole chicken.
The more connective tissue, the more water can be in the ratio.
I tend to use about 6 cups of water for a 4 lb bird.
It is most likely your water will NOT cover your bird and that is okay and normal. If you fill the pot with water in order to cover the bird you will end up with a very watery stock. Again, we don’t want a watery stock. It has less of the proline, glycine and collagen we want out of a hearty, thick stock.
Bring your pot to a boil. As it boils scum will begin to rise to the top. Try to skim off as much of the scum as you can in this process. You likely won’t be able to get it all and that is okay. Once you’ve reached a rolling boil, and you’ve skimmed as much scum as you can, lower the heat to a low simmer. Add in your salt and peppercorns and put on a lid.
Chicken meat stock cooks for 1 1/2 – 3 hours on the stove. It is important you keep to this shorter cook time. It is much shorter than bone broth. For a whole chicken, I usually cook it for about 2- 2 1/2 hours. This tends to be a perfect amount to get the chicken to fall apart once I pull it out.
If you are adding fresh herbs you can add them at the same time as the salt and peppercorns.
If you are adding raw veggies, in order to eat them along with the meat afterwards, I add them in the last 30-45 minutes of the cook so they are not too mushy.
Once your stock is finished remove your chicken and set it aside. Once it is cool you can shred all the chicken off of the bird. Save the bones to make bone broth later on – I save mine in bags in the freezer until I have enough to make a big pot of bone broth.
Strain out the peppercorns and any herbs or veggies.
Put your freshly made stock into wide-mouth jars and put on a lid. Allow them to cool a bit on the counter before putting them in the fridge.
Once refrigerated, the fat will begin to rise to the top. The stock will last at least 7 days in the fridge. If there is a nice, thick and undisturbed fat cap it will likely last longer.
If you plan to use the stock immediately for soup just add the cooked chicken and veggies back in and enjoy!
The beauty of stock is it presents you with an immediate meal if desired.
I also have a post on how to use chicken from stock if you’re not making it for the chicken but just for the stock. You can check that out here.
Different Cuts of Meaty Bones
There are many cuts of meaty bones you can use for chicken meat stock to achieve your goals. If you want more chicken out of a meat stock then make stock with a whole chicken, chicken thighs or chicken quarters.
If you are wanting less meat choose chicken legs, wings, backs, necks and feet. This will give you very little meat but a lot of good stock to drink.
Chicken feet are wonderful to toss into any chicken meat stock to help you glean more of the jiggle. They give a lot of gelatin.
If you are making beef meat stock you will use different bones like marrow bones, oxtail, shanks, and knuckle bones and your cook time will be longer. The smaller the animal, the shorter the cook. The bigger the animal the longer the cook.
Stove-top cook times:
Fish – 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours
Chicken – 1 1/2 – 3 hours
Beef – 4 – 6 hours
You can use basically any animal to make a stock: lamb, bison, pork, etc. Some people have access to wild game and make stock from those bones as well.
Making a good meat stock is like tapping into a history that does belong to you. It is a beautiful way to bring back a part of our heritage that nourishes the body and don’t we want to nourish ourselves and the generations to come? I know I do.
Please leave any questions in the comments. This often feels like a daunting task but once you figure it out it is quite easy.
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If you need full GAPS meal inspirations please check out my 30 Day Full GAPS meal plan and other recipes compilations. Be sure to grab the 7 free Full GAPS recipe download, too!
