There’s something about a bowl of homemade soup when you’re sick that no store-bought broth can replicate. It just tastes like someone cared enough to make it — even when that someone is you, running a fever, heaving yourself off the couch. At least that’s how the cookie crumbled for me when I made this super easy broth last time my daughter and I were down with the flu!
My grandmother never threw away a chicken bone or a vegetable peel in her life. At the time, I thought it was just a generational habit. Now I get it completely. She was keeping her family FED without spending extra money. All it took was a container in the freezer and her trusty stock pot.
In this post, you’ll learn exactly what scraps to save, how to store them safely, how to turn them into a super flavorful broth, and how to freeze it so you always have some at your fingertips. This way you can turn it into a healing broth by just dumping in a pot, and pouring in some water. IMO, it’s one of the easiest kitchen habits you can start today.
What Scraps Are Worth Saving
Not everything that comes out of your kitchen belongs in the compost. Plenty of it belongs in a freezer bag. (Psst! If you want my post on other things I do with all kinds of scraps click here!)
Chicken Scraps
The best *easy* starting point is the carcass from a rotisserie chicken or your scraps from other forms of chicken you might prepare. After you’ve used the meat, those bones are loaded with collagen and flavor. Don’t throw them away. Other great additions include:
- Chicken bones and skin left over from cooking thighs, drumsticks, or breasts
- Any drippings or bits stuck to the bottom of a roasting pan
- Leftover wing tips
Vegetable Scraps
You don’t need to buy a single vegetable to make a good broth. Save these as you cook throughout the week:
- Onion skins and ends
- Celery leaves and the base of the bunch
- Carrot peels and tops
- Garlic skins and smashed cloves
- Leek tops
- Mushroom stems
- Parsley stems
A few things to skip: cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage can turn the broth bitter.
How to Store Scraps in the Freezer
The method is as simple as it gets. Keep a large zip-top freezer bag in your freezer — a gallon bag works well. Or another freezer safe container. Every time you have scraps, add them straight from the cutting board or the dinner table. Seal the bag and toss it back in the freezer.
No cutting. No blanching. Scraps keep well frozen for up to three months before flavor starts to fade. When the bag is full or nearly full, you’re ready to make broth.
You don’t need to thaw anything first. The scraps go straight from frozen into the pot.
Making the Broth: From Freezer to Pot
The day my daughter and I both came down with a nasty cold, I wasn’t in any condition to chop vegetables or follow a complicated recipe. I was craving soup so so bad, and I had that freezer bag. I dumped everything into my largest pot, covered it with cold water, added a generous pinch of salt, and let it do its thing on the stove. That was it. No fuss.
Here’s how to do it step by step:
- Empty your freezer bag into a large stockpot. Everything goes in — bones, peels, onion skins, all of it.
- Cover with cold water. You want the scraps fully submerged with a couple of inches of water above them.
- Add salt. A teaspoon or two is a good starting point. You can always adjust later.
- Bring it to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. You want small, lazy bubbles — not a rolling boil, which can make the broth cloudy and slightly bitter.
- Let it simmer.
How Long Should You Simmer?
A shorter simmer — around 45 minutes to an hour — will give you a lighter broth that still tastes homemade and is perfectly good for soup. That’s what I made that sick day, and it was exactly what we needed.
If you have the time, a longer simmer of 2 to 4 hours pulls more collagen from the bones, giving you a richer, deeper flavor and a broth that may even gel slightly when chilled. That gelling is a good sign — it means you’ve extracted real gelatin, which gives the broth a silky body and makes it especially soothing to sip.
Both versions work. The longer one is just better if you’re not in a hurry.
- Strain the broth. Pour everything through a fine mesh strainer or a colander lined with cheesecloth into a large bowl or pot. Discard the solids — they’ve given everything they have. You can compost these if you compost!
- Taste and adjust salt, then let it cool before storing.
A Home That’s Ready for the Hard Days
One thing I’ve learned is that the days you most need comfort — like a sick day when all you want is soup — are a lot easier when the home hasn’t completely fallen apart around you. That’s not about having a perfect house. It’s about keeping high impact things maintained (and letting go of the low-impact things) so that when life throws you a curveball (like the flu!), the home can actually comfort you instead of adding to the stress.
That’s why I want to mention my Domestic Daydreams Radio membership! It includes podcast-style cleaning routines where you simply press play and I guide you through each step in timed increments. No mental load, no standing in the middle of a messy room trying to figure out where to start.
Some routines are paired with classic audiobooks — Anne of Green Gables is a favorite — and others play alongside vintage radio shows from the 1940s and 1950s. It keeps your home clean on autopilot-in just 30 minutes to an hour every day. And it just focuses on those high-impact cleaning tasks so you don’t burn out!
If you want to try it, I have a 14-day free trial here.
Now, back to what to do with that broth once it’s done simmering.
The Soup
Once I strained the broth that sick afternoon, I pulled out a few cups and made a simple noodle soup. I cooked some noodles in the broth and served it with a handful of fresh cilantro on top, a squeeze of lime, and a stack of warm corn tortillas with butter — that’s how we ate it growing up.
It was the exact soup I would have wanted someone (ahem my mom!) to make for me. And I made it for us in under an hour…55 minutes of which I spent dying on the couch. LOL.
How to Freeze Broth So You Always Have It
One batch of broth can last you weeks if you freeze it the right way. Here are two approaches that both work well.
Freeze in Cubes
Pour cooled broth into Souper Cubes (or an off-brand large ice cube tray) and freeze until solid. Pop the cubes into a labeled freezer bag.
Freeze Flat in Bags
Pour 1 to 2 cups of broth into a zip-top freezer bag, press out the air, seal it, and lay it flat on a sheet pan to freeze. Once frozen, the flat “slabs” stack easily and take up much less space than containers. Pull one out whenever you need a cup or two for soup.
Homemade broth keeps in the freezer for up to 4 to 6 months with good quality. In the fridge, use it within 4 to 5 days.
Why This Habit Is Worth Starting Now
This isn’t a complicated kitchen project. It’s just a bag in the freezer and a pot on the stove. But what it gives you is something that feels increasingly rare — a made from scratch kitchen staple that costs almost nothing, takes almost no active effort, and tastes SO MUCH BETTER than the store bought stuff.