Instant Pot Chicken Stock

Make Instant Pot Chicken Stock from a leftover whole chicken carcass in your pressure cooker with this easy recipe for homemade bone broth. Use for chicken soup or in any recipe that calls for chicken broth!

This delicious homemade chicken stock is one of my favorite Instant Pot recipes. It’s so easy that I make it once a week. When you see how easy it is to make chicken stock in the Instant Pot, you’ll be hooked!

You can use this pressure cooker bone broth as a base for Instant Pot chicken soup. And you can use homemade chicken broth in place of store bought in any recipe that calls for chicken broth!t

How to Make Chicken Stock in the Instant Pot

First, you’ll need a chicken carcass. I use the leftover chicken carcass from my favorite Instant Pot whole chicken recipe, which has tons of flavor from lemons, onions, herbs and garlic. You’ll definitely want to start there!

After you’re done eating,  just pick off any extra chicken from the carcass and place it on the trivet in your Instant Pot. Leave the juices in the pot, as well as the garlic, lemons and onions.

Next, add 6 cups of water to the pressure cooker. You don’t need to fully cover the chicken carcass, as you don’t want to water the stock down too much. But, you can add water up to the fill line if you want to.

I like to add some celery leaves for extra flavor, as well as a pinch of sea salt. You don’t really need anything else because you’ve got plenty of flavor from the cooked chicken here.

How Long to Pressure Cook Bone Broth

Pressure cook the chicken carcass for 60 minutes, and that’s it! When the chicken stock is done, let the pressure release for a few minutes or let it do a full natural release, which takes about 30 minutes. You can even let it stay on the warming cycle if you’re busy.

Use oven mitts to lift the trivet out of the Instant Pot, and discard the carcass. Next, place a mesh strainer over a large bowl.

Then, pour the stock into the bowl, and discard the bones and anything else that’s leftover in the strainer.

How to Store It

You can then portion the stock out into smaller containers to cool it down faster and refrigerate it. Homemade chicken stock keeps for about 4 days in the fridge.

When it’s cool and gelled, I usually pack it into smaller freezer bags and freeze what I won’t be using soon. You can also pour the stock into ice cube molds and freeze these smaller portions.

Difference Between Bone Broth and Stock

Your grandma would probably tell you they’re the same, since you’re using bones to make chicken stock for chicken soup/broth. But this article does a terrific job of explaining the difference between bone broth, stock and soup .

Generally, you want to extract as much collagen from the bones for bone broth. Some people add a splash of vinegar to help with this, but I find the lemons in my recipe do a decent job.

Since we have a large family, I usually cook 2 chickens ( in 2 different pots) and use both carcasses in the same Instant Pot to make the stock.  This makes actual chicken jelly, which totally grosses my kids out! C’est la vie.

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5 from 7 votes

Instant Pot Chicken Stock

By: Dee

Make the best Instant Pot Chicken Stock from a leftover chicken carcass in your pressure cooker with this easy recipe for homemade bone broth.

Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour

pressure time: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 25 minutes minutes

Servings: 10

Ingredients  

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1 chicken carcass
• ▢ 6 cups water
• ▢ 1 teaspoon sea salt
• ▢ 2 celery stalks with leaves

Instructions 

• Place the trivet in the Instant Pot, over the leftover juices from the whole chicken, and place chicken carcass on trivet
• Pour water into the pot, and add sea salt and celery stalks
• Place lid on Instant Pot, and turn valve to Sealing position. Hit PRESSURE COOK for 60 minutes
• Pot will take a few minutes to pressurize, then it will start counting down and cook for 60 minutes. Allow a 10-minute release (or longer, or full natural release if you want) then do a quick release or gradual quick release for remaining pressure to drop. Hit CANCEL to turn pressure cooker off
• When pin drops, open lid, carefully lift trivet (wear hot mitts), and discard chicken carcass. Pour stock through mesh strainer into a bowl, and separate into smaller containers to refrigerate or freeze
• Stock should gel when refrigerated. You can skim off the top layer of fat easily and discard before using, or you can use fat in place of oil or butter if making chicken soup

Notes

Recipe was made in 6-quart Instant Pot electric pressure cooker, but it can be made in an 8 quart without any adjustments.

If you’re not using my whole chicken recipe, add 8 cups of water plus 1 onion, 2 garlic cloves and 1 lemon for similar flavor.

 

Nutrition

Calories: 30kcal, Sodium: 240mg, Calcium: 5mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Soup

Cuisine: American

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First published in 2018 and updated in 2021