I make my broth in a pressure cooker from carcasses saved from roasted chickens. Never have a problem with lack of flavor, and the carcasses are not good for much else.

Seems kind of expensive to buy ground chicken to make broth.

Just my 2 cents.

Linda

The place where I buy my poultry bones their own breasts and sells the breast bones with some meat attached at 3 pounds (4 pounds for repeat customers) for $1. I'm wondering how much ground chicken and bone-in breasts for the Modern Method my dollar would buy.

Here's a pot of those bones ready for cooking.

The Cooks Illustrated recipe also uses 1 quart of water and 2 quarts of chicken broth. Given that they aren't making chicken broth; they are freshening up the flavor of store bought broth.

And that adds to the expense Linda mentions.

I also don't expect to get the same flavor from broth thickened with cornstarch that comes from that thickened by the gelatin seeps out of the bones and connective tissue (but maybe the purchased broth adds some of that).

Hmmmmm...somehow I don't think that ground chicken would make as rich a stock as the bones, skin, wings, backs, necks, etc. or even just a whole chicken. I wonder if you would get a very gelatinous stock with just ground chicken?

I once read of a recipe to produce really rich chicken broth or stock:

cook a whole chicken in a large pot with water to cover, simmer for a long time until meat falls off the bones then remove chicken from the stock and let it cool before picking meat off the bones

into the stock you just used to cook the chicken, add another chicken and cook it in the same manner until done and the meat falls off the bones

finally, cook a third chicken in the same stock until completely done and the meat is falling off the bones, then strain the stock through damp cheesecloth and let sit to cool, then refrigerate the broth

I would recommend that you sit at a table or counter to pick all that meat off of three chickens. I think I would add some extra wings and backs to the whole chicken and maybe an onion, carrot, celery, and parsley.

And ground chicken or turkey is pretty expensive! I'd agree with the others..
Much cheaper to ziploc a few leftover carcasses..and when you have time and a few basic veggies..make stock.
I wonder why Cook's Ill..is going this route? It certainly isn't economical..which I thought was part of the point of homemade..using left overs and making something amazing out of not much????

Thanks for the feedback; your comments make sense.

I will tell you that I made chicken feet stock for Make Ahead Gravy last week. I used other turkey parts too then on Thanksgiving Day, I added the drippings and fond from the roasted turkey breast. Of course I had to call Peppi to coach me through it. The comments included "this is the best gravy I've ever had!"

I do use ground chicken and vegetables as part of my egg white "raft" when making classic chicken consomme but I start with a defatted homemade chicken broth made with bones as the liquid.

"but as I am made aware frequently here, I'm not always a good judge of what is good. LOL "

Whoever said that can meet me in the parking lot. You are a wonderful judge of what is good and an excellent cook. Now bend that arm to the back and give it a pat then another form me.

On topic, I know that Mom would add some ground beef to enrich a stock for beef soups. Did it add to it? Hey, I loved them! But for chicken, I will stick wth the footies method if you can handle the "pedicure". It does have the ick factor, but use it on the grandkids. Think of he memories the will have 50 years from now of Grammie trimming toes.

One of the major reasons for simmering the bones for so long is to get the gelatin out of them.

You can't do that in less than 4 to 6 hours in an open stock pot.

YOu can do it in about 45 minutes with a pressure cooker.

Well, I can see using the ground meat as an adjunct to the traditional method (benefit - keeping the kitties happy) but otherwise I think I'll stick with the old tried-and-true.

Carol

Forgive me, but that just sounds disgusting. What are those editors thinking? Isn't commercially ground chicken made up of skin and weird bits? And what do you do with the boiled chicken breasts after?

My husband's a chef and he just rolled his eyes at the idea.

To be fair to Cooks Illustrated, they didn't say it was a way to make chicken broth - it was a recipe for quick hearty chicken noodle soup and they say in the article that to make it with canned chicken broth and "mask its canned origins".

The meat from the poached chicken breast was to be shredded and added back into the soup. I don't think commercially ground chicken is made from skin and wierd bits, I expect that you would be able to see skin in it.

It doesn't sound disgusting to me but it isn't a way to make broth.

Ever simmer ground beef in a bit of water....
Does it "set up" whan it cools?
None that I have ever done does.
Nope....bones all the way!!

Cathy, there's always chicken feet!!! ;-)

I think Cloud Swift explained it in the 4th post to this thread.

I agree with gardengrl - her broth method using chicken feet looked like the best idea I've seen.

Lars

Gimme bones.

I enjoy Cooks Illustrated in part because I enjoy laughing at it when it becomes a parody of itself. Right next to a perfectly reasonable technique point or product review will be a perfectly ridiculous over-worked and over-thought recipe.

Case in point.

I am sure the chicken feet method is wonderful, but I just can't get past the "ick factor"! LOL (Besides I have no idea where I could get chicken feet around here even if I wanted to.)

I'll stick to carcasses, thankyouverymuch!

Linda

Linda, I finally found the feet but they set in the freezer for many months. I finally got up the courage (again, with help from Peppi and Kathy's tutorial) to cook them for Thanksgiving and the payoff was big! I almost threw in the toenail clippers during the process.

Cathy