Not boneless chicken breasts! What to do?

[Ogedei]

Well when life gives you lemons you are supposed to make lemonade.

When life gives you chicken bones you make chickenade..No wait better idea..Soup!

I was in the grocery store the other day after I had seen split pea soup (my fave) on TV and was cruising the soup aisle because of it. The lowest I found was like 550mg of sodium or something like that.

So when I found the chicken breasts I had bought were not boneless I set out to make no sodium soup this evening.

My chicken was already cooked so I through it into a pot with some carrots and half of an onion. I filled half the pot with water and set to boil it for about an hour.

After that I pulled the chicken bones out and stripped the meat off as much as I could. I put the chicken back in and through out the bones.

I added black pepper and chipolte pepper and let it boil a bit longer.

To finish I slapped in 1/2 cup of quinoa and 1/2 cup of lentils and let it go for about 45 minutes.

It is done now.

Review.

I give it *** out of *****

In general it is tasty, not overly spicy but you can tell it's there. The broth is a little weak but it is full of good stuff. So if your not just sucking back the broth it dosen't matter. It could perhaps be made better with more chicken in the initial boil.

All in all an excellent way to use the bones I had left. No sure on the macro breakdown, but it's all whole foods with some spices.

Lentils, Onions, carrots, Quinoa and Chicken.

I have tonnes of it as well so it should be a decent comfort food.

mmmm mmmm Soup.

I'll probably see what I can do about a split pea variety...maybe split pea and quinoa?

Og.

[Lost Dog]

Good work on the chickenade. mmmmm...

If you've never made split pea soup, do it. It's the world's easiest soup. Fool proof (practically).

Your soup sounds good. Love lentils.

For your future chicken broths... It takes a lot of bones to get a good flavor. Get a big ziplock bag for the freezer. Everytime you get any chicken bone or piece of skin, toss it in the bag. Any veggie scrap, like celery tops, bottoms, carrot remnants, onion peels or ends, toss them all in the bag, too. No broc or cauliflower, please.

When the bag is full, put in in a pot and barely cover with water. Bring to a simmer, but don't boil it. Simmer for a long, long time. Crockpots work well for some overnight stock making.

The skin's got a lot of fat, so strain the stock and put it in containers in the fridge, then skim the hardened fat off the top once it gets cold and solid.

When I've got a lot, I freeze it in ice cube trays or cottage cheese containers. You can put the cubes in big ziplocks, too. Use them, as needed.

[RacerBill]

Exactly what LD said -- keep those chicken bones and when you get a pile of them, make some chicken stock. I use it for lots of stuff, especially as a substitute for chicken buillion in GN recipes. You get more chicken flavor and MUCH less salt that way. And it's easy to just put the pot on the stove some weekend afternoon and let it simmer away while you do other stuff.

[Ogedei]

Sounds decent.

Of course I almost never have chicken bones. Although that could change as the chicken was the cheapest I had seen it for a long time.

Ie usually I am looking at $20 for like 6 or 7 breasts boneless. This was $12 for 6 or 7 breasts with some bones.

So with that knowledge I will probably make the extra trip to get the cheap chicken and be armed to make stock and soups, especially given I am going back to school here in the fall and need to stretch the ole dollar.

I will def look into making a healthier split pea soup LD, I love that stuff.

Sodium levels in store bought soup are retarded and like I said I got a crap load of soup for not much cash. Lentils and Quinoa have been in the cupboard for months. And even after I had like 2 or 3 bowls last night I still filled two large canning jars, maybe 2 or 3 litres of soup

[gobbla]

when I was in the states we'd by a turkey every so often. a 16lbs turkey has a TON of meat for 49 cents a pound. bake it and freeze what you're not going to use. you have enough bones to make a good stock. one day worth of pain in the ass will have you eating turkey for some time.

[Ogedei]

Well yes, but i'm buying chicken for it's leanness, if I go with whole birds I am getting a fair bit of the dark meat that I don't actually want. I can always buy that stuff pretty cheap.

Og.

[RacerBill]

Originally Posted by Ogedei

Sounds decent.
Ie usually I am looking at $20 for like 6 or 7 breasts boneless. This was $12 for 6 or 7 breasts with some bones.

Yep. Be your own butcher and you get more for your buck. Plus you get to play with knives!! We all know how fond you are of sharp objects, Og.

[Ogedei]

I need better knives.

[GG300]

If you brown the bones in the oven like you would the bones for beef soup you will increase the flavor of the stock. That plus Lost Dogs tip on using the fat and then skimming off the congealed fat should help the flavor considerable. Adding herbs helps as well I would try Dry sage or parsley.

[Egham]

Originally Posted by gobbla

when I was in the states we'd by a turkey every so often. a 16lbs turkey has a TON of meat for 49 cents a pound. bake it and freeze what you're not going to use. you have enough bones to make a good stock. one day worth of pain in the ass will have you eating turkey for some time.

We buy turkey breasts when our local markets have them on special, and we always save the bones and scraps for soup stock. It takes about two turkey breasts to produce the amount we like to use, so we bag and store them in the freezer until we are ready to make soup.