Home Made Chicken Bouillon Cubes

2011 January 24

Chicken bouillon cubes are the best way to pack a flavour punch into any sauce, soup, or risotto you’re making. The only problem is, the salty cubes you buy are full of preservatives, MSG (“yeast extract”), colouring agents… and that mysterious “spices” term that always makes me a tad anxious. Seriously? “Spices”?! Thanks alot.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, and I’m finally getting around to it. Making your own chicken bouillon cubes is really, really, really easy. Whenever you roast a chicken, or buy a roast chicken, save the leftover skin, bones, etc. (If its a small chicken, under 5 lbs, use two carcases. ahahah I love that word. Carcass… I think I just made a vegan somewhere puke in their own mouth… oopsie. Sorry. :) )

Right, so, save the leftover bones and skin. I like to keep a bag in the freezer and put the leftovers in there. As they acumulate or when I have time, I make chicken stock and bouillon cubes.

There are two other blogs that I found that have great bouillon cube recipes, if you’re looking for additional inspiration, check out Leslieland and AngeliquesSmorgaabord.

MyRealFoodLife.com

Home Made Bouillon Cubes

Note: This technique can be done to make beef bouillon cubes, as well.

Ingredients

1-2 chicken carcasses (if they have spices on them, remember that those flavours will also be in your cubes)
1 spaghetti pot (large pot)
about 12 cups of water
(if you want)- 1 onion cut in half, 1 carrot, 1 garlic clove, 2 celery stalks
OR- 12 cups of chicken broth or beef broth

Directions

Put all your ingredients in the pot, and cover by about 2 inches with water.
Bring the water to a boil, and then turn it down to simmer for 2 hours (you can do more, sometimes my mom would leave it over night to simmer… err but thats the grossest smell to wake up to in the morning, ever… lol and I don’t recommend leaving your stove unattended)
Pour the liquid through a fine strainer, and throw out the bones.
At this point, you can cool the broth in your fridge and make the cubes later, or you can proceed.
Pour the broth into a wide pot or deep saucepan- you want to try to get as much surface area in contact with the heat as possible.
Bring the broth to a boil again, and then reduce to simmer.
When the broth is reduced in volume by like 3/4- or it looks like its almost syrup (but not quite- if you let it get to syrup it becomes caramelized. It still tastes good but won’t make a broth if you add water later.), take it off the heat and pour into a cake pan, or into individual silicone muffin or mini-muffin trays. Refrigerate till solid and scrape off the fat, or freeze right away. You’re done!

Note:

-You will have to add salt when you use these cubes.

– 1 large cube (about 2 inches by 2 inches, and 1 inch high), makes about 2 -3 cups of broth.

-The pictures shown below are the caramelized version of this recipe. If you are doing the bouillon cubes, the final product will still be semi-transparent, wobbly, and likely without the fat on top. Check the pictures on the two blogs noted above for reference.