I buy a rotisserie chicken once a week from Costco (can’t beat it for $4.99!) and after finishing off the meat on it, I always use the leftover bones to make homemade bone broth! Not only is it a great way to use something you would otherwise throw away with no use (free broth for recipes!!), but bone broth has health benefits as it is packed with collagen, amino acids, minerals, and vitamins. It is so easy to make your own bone broth and it turns out so tasty and flavorful when using rotisserie chicken bones.

I use bone broth in any recipe I would normally use regular chicken broth. Some faves are my chicken pot pie, my roasted veggie soup, and my chicken sausage ditalini soup!

Bone broth is essentially a broth made with animal bones. I prefer chicken bone broth (hence with rotisserie chicken bones), but you can alternatively make bone broth with any other animal bones you have. The name bone broth would indicate that it is different from a “stock”; however, they are the exact same thing– but we can keep that between you and me. 😉

Bone Broth Benefits

Bone broth has gotten very popular due to it’s high protein content and rich source of collagen. Some people love to sip on it in the morning by itself just to get the health benefits.

Cooking the bones, joints, chicken wings, and connective tissues in bone broth helps extract rich sources of collagen and protein. Collagen has a lot of benefits such as skin health, joint health, and hair health. Eating a diet high in protein can help with muscle health and weight loss.

Because traditional chicken broth contains no bones, bone broth is going to be higher in collagen and protein than regular chicken broth.

Storing Bone Broth

Chicken broth can be refrigerated for 3-4 days and frozen (for best quality) for 2-3 months. I like to freeze extra bone broth, so I have it on hand for recipes whenever I need it. I love these silicone freezer trays to freeze individual 1 cup cubes of bone broth so it’s super easy to defrost exactly how much I need for a recipe. Alternatively, these deli soup containers are also great for freezing additional bone broth.

If you enjoy this recipe, you may also enjoy my post about go-to recipes to use up extra produce so that you waste less food!

How to Make Bone Broth Using Rotisserie Chicken

Bone broth is essentially a broth made with animal bones. I prefer chicken bone broth (hence with rotisserie chicken bones), but you can alternatively make bone broth with any other animal bones you have. You can also add things like vegetable scraps, herbs, and seasonings to give the broth more flavor. My favorite way to go about this is when I make something that has onion, garlic, or I need to peel a carrot, I put those scraps into a freezer ziploc bag and freeze it. Then when I am ready to make bone broth, I add the frozen veggie scraps to add some extra flavor.

Optional Additional Things To Add to Bone Broth When Cooking:

• Onion and onion skins
• Carrot/carrot peels
• Celery
• Herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, bay leaves, parsley, etc)
• Garlic

In order to make bone broth you have to let the bones simmer in water for a good amount of time to really bring out the flavor. You can speed up this process using an Instant Pot or make it slightly more hands off using a Crock Pot.

Stove-top

The most traditional way to make bone broth is on the stove-top. All you do is add your bones/rotisserie chicken carcass to a large pot. Cover with water (about 12 cups of water or so) and add in desired vegetable scraps and herbs. Heat on stove to boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cover for 12+ hours. Strain using a fine mesh strainer. Taste and add salt as needed once cooked.

Crock Pot

Bone broth in the crock pot is my preferred method of making bone broth because you can cook it overnight without having your stove on! We have a gas stove and the idea of leaving it on while we sleep freaks me out, so a slow cooker makes the most sense to me.

All I do is add bones/rotisserie chicken carcass to the slow cooker and cover with about 12 cups of water and and any desired vegetable scraps and herbs. Cook on low for 12+ hours (24 hours is great!) to extract as much collagen as possible. Strain using a fine mesh strainer. Taste and add salt as needed once cooked.

Instant Pot

Making bone broth in the Instant Pot is probably the quickest method. To the instant pot, add the chicken carcass/bones, any vegetable scraps and herbs, and cover with enough water but not enough that it is past two-thirds full (this amount is going to be dependent on your size Instant Pot). Add the lid and choose the Soup/Broth option then press the more option so that it cooks for 4 hours at High pressure. Note: the bone broth in the instant pot may not be deeply colored due to a lack of boiling motion in pressure cooking. Strain using a fine mesh strainer. Add salt to taste once done.

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