Roasted Chicken and Bone Broth in the Crockpot
Two Healthy Crockpot Recipes With Only One Effort
Dust off your crockpot. Today I am going to show you how to put this trusty little kitchen appliance to work for you! As I mentioned in my last post, my crockpot completely changed my relationship with cooking for the better.
One of my absolute favorite things to do with the crockpot is to roast an entire chicken for dinner one evening and then turn the leftovers into an incredibly nourishing bone broth. So you essentially get TWO healthy, nourishing, and very versatile recipes but with only ONE effort! That is a total score in my book.
Let's get started, shall we?!
Healthy Crockpot Recipe #1: Whole Roasted Chicken
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 onion
½ tsp garlic powder
2 tsp rosemary
2 tsp thyme
2 tsp sage
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
1 tbsp paprika
Directions:
Mix all spices together in a bowl.
Chop onion.
Remove any giblets from the chicken but don't toss them! Put them in a covered container and save them in the fridge. You will use these when you make the stock!
Place entire chicken into the crockpot.
Surround the chicken with the chopped onions and stuff a few inside the cavity.
Rub chicken with the spice mixture.
Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours or until the chicken is falling off the bone.
Carve chicken. Pull all off all meat.
Set aside bones and cooked onions.
Enjoy!
Healthy Crockpot Recipe #2: Nourishing Bone Broth
Making my own broth was always one those things that sounded like a really good idea and something that I wanted to try but never actually followed through on. It seemed like too much of a time commitment and a bit of an inconvenience.
But when I came across this idea of cooking a whole chicken in the crockpot and then creating a stock out of the leftovers on one of my favorite blogs (100 Days of Real Food), I was completely sold. And I am so glad that I tried it!
Bone broth is like liquid gold. I love it. This mineral-rich liquid is full of nutrients that are easy for the body to absorb and also boasts some other pretty awesome health benefits. It helps support your immune system, is healing for your gut, and helps reduce inflammation. And these are just a few of the miracles of bone broth - check out the article Traditional Bone Broth in Modern Health and Disease by Allison Siebecker to read about even more of them.
Commercially made stocks are also often high in sodium, contain added sugar, and other unhealthy additives. Even the organic stocks. Seriously. Check the label the next time you are in the store!
When you make your own stock, you also use the entire animal which makes it a more sustainable way of eating meat.
Are you diggin' the benefits? Ready to try it? It's go time!
Ingredients:
bones and cooked onions from roasted chicken
giblets (if saved)
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
water
vegetable scraps (I keep a bag of vegetable scraps in the freezer - things like celery tips, kale stems, onion pieces, leftover bits of zucchini from zucchini noodles, etc. This is a great way to add some extra nutrients to the stock as well as decrease waste!)
Directions:
Put bones and cooked onions back into the crockpot. Don't even bother to wash it!
Add giblets.
Add apple cider vinegar. This will help leach the minerals out of the bones and put them into the stock.
Add any desired vegetable scraps. You can also add a whole carrot, celery ribs, broccoli stalks, etc. Really anything you have on hand. This is an awesome way to use things that are leftover and about to go to waste.
Fill the crockpot with water.
Cook on low for 12-24 hours.
Use a large mesh sieve to remove the bones, vegetables, and giblets.
Use straight away or freeze.
This quick video outlines the steps in pictures.
The amount of broth you walk away with will depend on the size of your crockpot. I use a large crockpot so that I have plenty to freeze even after I use some right away. I usually freeze the extra in various sized containers. This way I always have it on hand whenever a recipe calls for stock or I want to throw together a quick soup or stew.
Give it a try - I promise you won't be disappointed!
Get A Printable Copy of These Recipes
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