Ever wonder what to do with that leftover chicken carcass after a Sunday roast lunch? Whatever you do, don’t throw it away! Especially if it’s a free-range ideally organic sourced chicken, you want to squeeze every last bit of goodness out of it so nothing has gone to waste. Here’s how to turn the leftover bones into another deliciously nutritious meal.

Chickenstrone Soup

Print Recipe

Ingredients

leftover chicken bones, skin, carcass and cartilage
2 litres water or leftover chicken bone broth stock
1 onion chopped
2 ribs celery chopped
2 carrots chopped
1 tsp tomato paste
1 cup fresh tomatoes chopped
1 cup butternut chopped
1 cup sweet potato chopped
2 bay leaves
1 cup pasta of your choice for a gluten-free option, look out for pasta made from lentils or chickpeas
2 baby marrows chopped
1/2 cup peas
1 cup cannellini beans cooked
2 cups baby spinach
Freshly grated parmesan vegan parmesan, or organic dairy source

Instructions

In a large stockpot, add the reserved chicken bones, carcass and cartilage from the roast chicken (or straight out of the freezer if you’ve been saving up the bones).
Pour over the stock, add the onion, celery, carrots, tomato paste, fresh tomatoes, butternut, sweet potato and bay leaves, and bring to a bubbling simmer.
Once bubbling, turn down the heat and simmer for 30–45 minutes, or until the hardest root vegetables are cooked through.
Using a colander, strain the liquid into a heat-proof bowl, keeping the vegetables aside.
Discard the bones, cartilage and bay leaves.
Return the vegetables and the strained liquid to the pot.
Bring the soup to the boil and add the pasta.
Once the pasta is almost cooked, add the baby marrows, peas and cannellini beans and cook for a few minutes until the baby marrow is soft but not too mushy.
Remove the pot from the heat and add the baby spinach, stirring it in so that it wilts.
Serve in giant soup bowls with chunks of rye sourdough, or seed crackers for a low-carb option, and a liberal grating of vegan or good quality organic or grass-fed dairy parmesan.

Bone broth is a popular buzzword these days, and for good reason! Brewing the leftover bones helps break down the connective tissue and cartilage compounds to render the beneficial collagen, as well as to extract all the nutrients, minerals and amino acids found in the bones themselves that would otherwise go un-eaten and unused. Making use of ALL the meat (and now the bones) from the roast chicken not only limits food waste, but gives you more banquet for your buck, stretching an otherwise pricey piece of meat over three separate meals. But let’s face it, bone broth probably won’t exactly inspire your inner culinary diva – well, not until you jazz it up a little and use the bone broth as a base for something that will entice your inner Epicurean. Reserved bones, carcass and cartilage from roast chicken (freeze leftover bones to use at a later stage if you don’t feel like a chicken-based meal two or three times in a row).

Chickenstrone Soup