Instant Pot Chicken Broth

OK, so I got an Instant Potelectric pressure cooker a year ago. Yes, it was a bandwagon purchase. I stumbled upon a Facebook users page and the more I read, the more I wanted one and I'm so glad I did! Besides the weekly gallon of yogurt I make us, I also make homemade bone broth. It's an amazing way to use the carcasses of the roasted chickens I get at Costco. And I get to control the ingredients, flavors, and the portion sizes.

I don't know about you, but I previously purchased broths in the grocery store, in one of those Tetrapac containers that hold 4 cups. Rachel Ray has her own brand and there are various others. The problem I've had is that most recipes never use all 4 cups. And by food safety standards, once you open those babies, you better use it up in less than 3 weeks. Well now, with my Instant Pot, and these handy silicone traysI can make my own healthy broth and freeze in exactly 1/2 cup portions. No more wasted broth down the drain!

The great thing about the Instant Pot is that chicken bone broth that previously took me 12-24 hours hours in the Crock Pot, now takes me less than 4 hours from start to finish.

Instant Pot Chicken Broth
Prep time - 15 minutes
Cooking time - 4 hrs

Ingredients:

• Carcass of 1 roasted chicken (I have an 8 qt Instant Pot so I use 2 carcasses)
• 3 whole carrots, peeled and chopped into 2" pieces or one cup of baby carrots
• 3 celery stalks, washed and chopped into 2" pieces
• 1/2 Onion, cut into quarters
• 6 cloves of garlic peeled and slightly crushed
• 1-2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 tsp crushed rosemary
• 1 tsp parsley
• 10 pepper corns or 1 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• cheese cloth and twine to create a bouquet garni for the herbs

Directions:

Place chicken carcass, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, apple cider vinegar and salt into the instant pot. Fill with water up to 2/3 full (this means 2/3 full to the top of the pot, not to the 2/3 of the full line. 

Create a small square with several layers of cheesecloth. Add the herbs to the center of the square. Draw up into a little pouch and tie in around with a piece of twine like this:

Toss pouch of herbs into pot with everything else. 

Press Manual and set to 120 minutes. Let pot natural pressure release. This might take a while as there is so much liquid. It took my 8 qt. 1 1/2 hrs to depressurize.

Final product looks like this. You can see the herb pouch in the center of this picture.

After releasing from pressure, strain the broth through a cheese cloth lined colander and refrigerate strained broth until fat is chilled and can be easily skimmed off. 

Poor into suitable sized freezer containers (as mentioned, I used 1/2 c. silicone trays in link above). Freeze and store in ziplock bags until needed.

Finished product looks like this:

As you can see you can pop them out of the tray and melt in the microwave or add directly to your sauce pan as needed.

Unlike some recipes out there, I do not add chicken feet to my broth recipe. Some people believe that the coagulation factors of adding the chicken feet to the broth adds much desired collagen to the finished product. That may be the case, however, since I mostly use my chicken broth for cooking and not drinking as a dietary supplement, I prefer it to be more broth-like and not thick, like gelatin. But if you like a thicker broth, you can add a few chicken feet in with the rest of the ingredients.

I'll be posting my recipe for Instant Pot Beef Bone broth in the next week or two. It's a little longer process because I roast the bones first but you still get a rich, flavorful broth in way less time than traditional beef broth takes to make. It's also a great base for my homemade Pho.

'Til next time!