Chinese Chicken Broth does not use a lot of ingredients to make. You only need green onions and a piece of ginger. My Easiest Chinese Chicken Stock uses a whole chicken. Put everything together in a pot with a plenty of water and boil it for 3-4 hours. That’s all there is to it.
The quantity of chicken broth you can make is approximate, but you should be able to make enough for 3 servings of noodle soup.
- 1.5kg/3.3lb whole chicken (note 1)
- 14 cups water
- 20g/0.7oz ginger crushed or sliced
- 40g/1.4oz green onion (green parts only)
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Clean the cavity of the chicken under running water, removing giblets and kidneys if they are still attached along the backbones.
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Put the chicken and the rest of the ingredients into a pot that can comfortably fit the whole chicken in, but without too much room around it. The water should completely cover the chicken (note 2).
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Bring it to a boil over high heat.
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Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 3-4 hours with a lid on (note 3).
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Turn the heat off (note 4), put the broth through a sieve and collect only the liquid.
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(Optional) When the broth cools down, cover and chill until the fat on the surface solidifies. Then remove most of the white solid fat on the surface of the broth (note 5).
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Makes about 1.4L/3pt of Chinese Chicken Broth.
1. My whole chicken was 1.5kg/3.3lb, but your chicken can be a bit smaller or larger. You just have to adjust the quantity of the other ingredients.
2. I used a 24cm/9½" stockpot to make my broth. 14 cups of water covered the whole chicken completely. It is ideal to use a pot that is not too large in diameter so that the water can cover the chicken.
If you only have a very large pot, you’ll have to add extra water and condense it at the end.
3. If the heat is too high, the water evaporates too fast, and you might find that a large portion of the chicken ends up above water level after a couple of hours of cooking. If this happens, add boiling water to cover most of the chicken and continue to cook.
4. When I finished cooking, about 1/3 of the chicken was above water.
5. Because this recipe uses a whole chicken, the broth accumulates a lot of fat. I think it is better to remove most of the fat (see the step-by-step photo in the post).
6. You can store the broth in the freezer for 2-3 months.