It’s been one of those weeks. One kid is getting over a regular cold, the other kid has covid, and my husband and I are waking up each morning wondering if this is the day we succumb to one virus or the other.
Also, it’s been gray and rainy since last week so we’ve been cooped up inside dodging the coughs and sneezes of our offspring.
March is feeling especially Marchy this year, a long, dull slog that makes me want to crawl back in bed for a nap.
What I have to offer you today is a little bit of warmth and comfort in this otherwise gray month. A mug of warm broth that’s nourishing and flavorful and doesn’t require very much effort.
This recipe for Instant Pot chicken broth is the easiest way to make chicken broth. You can sip the broth from a mug or turn into a satisfying pot of soup.
There’s minimal prep-work and the ingredient list is short. Don’t worry about finely chopping anything. The carrots, celery, onion and garlic can go into the pot in big chunks. Then you add chicken pieces (see details below), water and salt. Bay leaf and parsley are optional.
The broth does take some time to cook, about 1 1/2 hours total in the Instant Pot. Then you strain it, adjust the flavor, and decide if you want to add noodles/dumplings/veggies . . .etc.
Instant Pot Chicken Broth
Ingredients
2 to 3 pounds chicken wings or party wings*
1 to 2 carrots, chopped into chunks
2 celery stalks, chopped into chunks
1 onion, peeled and quartered
2 to 4 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
3 quarts water
1 1/2 teaspoon table salt
Optional: 1 bay leaf, black peppercorns, a few sprigs of fresh parsley
Secret flavor enhancing ingredient: Better Than Bouillon Roasted Chicken Base
A Note About Chicken
*I buy regular wings or party wings because wings have more gelatin than other parts of the bird. More gelatin means a richer, more flavorful broth.
HOWEVER using wings means you’ll end up with only a small amount of meat and the meat will be attached to flabby chicken skin. If you can’t deal with flabby chicken skin and/or you want to serve chicken soup with a good amount of chicken, then here’s what you can use instead:
A whole chicken carcass leftover from roasted chicken or rotisserie chicken
A whole raw chicken. You can find a recipe for this method on Simply Recipes.
Drumsticks or bone-in thighs (more dark meat than wings, slightly less chicken skin to deal with)
Instructions
Combine the chicken, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, water and salt in your Instant Pot (I use a 6-quart model). If you want, add a bay leaf, a teaspoon of black peppercorns and/or a few sprigs of parsley. Make sure not to fill the insert past the “maximum fill” line on the inside of the pot.
Seal the lid and either press the “soup” button or manually program 40 minutes on high pressure.
It will take about 20 minutes for the Instant Pot to reach pressure, then 40 minutes to cook the broth, then another 30 minutes or so for the pressure to naturally release.
Use tongs to remove the cooked chicken pieces. You can shred the meat and keep it separate or add it back to the broth for soup.
To separate out the onion, celery, carrot and garlic I set a large fine mesh strainer over a soup pot or a food storage container and pour the broth through it. You can discard the soft veggies or add salt and eat them.
Taste the broth. It will probably be a little bland, so you’ll need to add more salt and/or Better than Bouillon. Try whisking in a tablespoon of the bouillon, then add more if needed. If the soup has a blah beige color, you can also add a sprinkle of turmeric to turn it a more appetizing yellow.
Once the broth is seasoned as you like, you can decide what type of soup to serve. Or, you can just keep the plain broth in the fridge and warm up mugs for sipping.
Chicken Soup: Shred the meat and season it with salt, then add it back to the broth.
Veggies: You can simmer the broth again with finely chopped carrots and/or other veggies.
Noodles: For chicken noodle soup, choose from egg noodles, fideo noodles or orzo. You can boil the noodles in the broth, but this method will reduce the amount of broth because the pasta will soak it up as it cooks. I usually cook the pasta separately then add it.
Matzo balls: I often add Matzo balls made from Streit’s Matzo Ball Mix.
Seaweed: Go a completely different direction and add dried wakame to hot broth. It expands a lot in broth, so it’s best to sprinkle a little bit in bowl and ladle broth over the top, rather than adding it to the main pot of soup. It only takes a few minutes to hydrate.
When I gave birth to my second baby, the hospital served new mothers seaweed soup. I was surprised by how good it tasted, and it was so nourishing compared to regular hospital food.
Dinner Last Week
I’m always curious about what other families are eating. Aren’t you?
Last week I had a few days of bad cooking mojo. Occasionally I have “off” weeks when it seems like nothing I cook turns out the way I want it to. It happens to the best of us!
Monday: This dinner was good - our family version of easy homemade sushi made with salmon lox from Costco, sliced avocado and cucumber and regular white rice. This is one of my kids’ favorite dinners.
Tuesday: I tried to make a dish with chicken breasts, marinated artichokes and potatoes. Sounds good, right? It was very mediocre and then I had to eat the leftovers for two days. Ugh.
Wednesday: I tried to follow a recipe for coconut broth soup with pork, but things went south quickly. The ground pork I paid for at the grocery store somehow didn’t make it into my grocery bag. So I tried substituting mushrooms (mistake) and then the broth tasted too sweet so I added fish sauce (bigger mistake) so I whisked in curry paste (didn’t improve things). My husband actually walked into the kitchen and said, “what is that terrible smell?” (It was our dinner)
When I picked up the kids later that afternoon I took them to In-N-Out for burgers. The husband and I scrounged around later that night and I think mostly ate cheese and crackers and salad for dinner.
Thursday: I bravely tried to bounce back from my bad cooking mojo by making carrot and saffron risotto, which actually turned out pretty good. On the side we had oven roasted asparagus.
Friday: I added 2 whisked eggs and a cup of panko to the 3 cups of leftover risotto and formed the rice into “burger” patties. I fried the risotto patties in a skillet and served them with Trader Joe’s French fries.
Reading
This week I started and finished Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau. It’s a quick and easy read, very light and sweet with a few laughs thrown in. Mary Jane is a fourteen-year-old who’s coming of age in 1970s and realizing that who she’s supposed to be (according to her parents) isn’t who she wants to be. A summer nanny job brings “sex, drugs and rock & roll” into her life and sparks a tame rebellion against her uptight parents.
I enjoyed Mary Jane, especially her relationship with her Mom, but the book was almost too light for me. It reads more like YA than a serious novel, and I’m realizing that right now I’m getting more enjoyment from heavier books. I also think this book would be fantastic on audio, rather than reading a hard copy. There is music and singing woven throughout the pages, and I’d hope that an audio version would bring this to life.
That’s it! Hope everyone stays healthy (including me!) and has a good weekend.
xo
Jenny