Chicken broth for babies and toddlers

Broth is a cheap and highly nutrient dense food, one of the best super food out there. Besides the amazing rich taste, broth provides all the nutrition to help keep you healthy, it is known to boost the immune system and improve digestion.

Homemade broth is filled with calcium, magnesium, sulfur, chondroitin and glucosamine. One of the healthiest foods you’ll eat this winter!

It can be made from the bones and the meat of beef, bison, lamb, poultry, or fish, and vegetables and spices are often added.

My favorite one is chicken broth, delicate and tasty. When I can find a beautiful organic whole chicken at the market I like to prepare a big pot of chicken broth and store it in the freezer for future recipes. Chicken broth is a basic ingredient for tons of recipes, from the easy chicken broth with noodles/pastina to the more sophisticated risotto.

The recipe I’m sharing is designed for babies and toddlers: I didn’t use not a single crystal of salt, just chicken, veggies and some herbs. The final taste is very delicate, perfect for little palates. If you are cooking for adults you can add some salt (see the ingredients) while you add the other ingredients or, as I do for my family, I keep the broth without salt and I add the salt to the portion of the broth for the recipe that I’m cooking.

That’s all you will need:

How to prepare it:

– Wash very well the carrots, the parsnip, the Italian parsley, the rosemary and the celery. Chop them in big pieces. Peel che onions and divide them in half. Divide the garlic in half too and remove the extra peel. Rinse the chicken and make sure that it is clean inside.

– Fill a big pot (I’m using a 20 quart) with 8 quarts of water and place it on the stove. Add all the ingredients.

– Turn the heat on at medium and bring to a boil. When the broth starts boiling, reduce the heat at low and let it simmer for 4 hours, uncovered.

– Prepare a colander with a cheese cloth in it and place it on a big container: I’m using another big pot. Let the broth cool down for one hour and strain the contents through the colander. Using the cheese cloth it will be easier to pack the chicken/bones/vegetables and remove them. You can throw them away (sigh…) or, as I do, you can prepare a nice meal for your animals. My dogs are always happy when I prepare chicken stock 😉

– Once the broth is chilled you can easily store it in the freezer in air tight containers for future usage. I find useful to store it in containers of different sizes (small, medium, big) so that I will thaw only the quantity I need. For a baby puree the small container will be fine, for a risotto the big one. The chicken broth can be freezes up to 4 months.

If you are using a grass-fed free-range healthy chicken the final broth should be lean and not too fat. Nevertheless, if, once cooled down, you see a big thick layer of fat on the broth surface, just remove it with a spoon. If you want to speed up the process place the cooled down pot in the refrigerator for 1 hour and you will see that the fat on the surface will get white and thick, like a separate layer: extremely easy to remove.

Enjoy!