How Martha Stewart Makes The Best Use Of A Whole Chicken

Walking into the dining room with a juicy, fully cooked whole chicken is always an impressive image for your guests (and if you need a few tips to pull this off, we've got you covered). But if you've purchased a whole, raw bird and want to take it in a different direction, what else can you do with it? To get the most delectable answer possible, we turned to a pro.

Martha Stewart knows the best way to accomplish everything from making roast chicken to avoiding burnt chicken bits, and if she's got whole birds on hand, the celebrity chef is whipping up soup. Stewart recently found herself with 25 large roosters in her freezer, as one does, and told The Daily Meal that she's turning one of them into "the most delicious chicken soup." But beyond the main ingredient, she's got plenty of tasty ones to go with it. "I have leeks from the garden, carrots from the garden, onions from the garden, garlic from the garden, parsley from the garden, that's all I'm using in the actual chicken soup," Stewart said.

If you're Stewart, you'll of course get fresh poultry from a nearby farm. "Don't tell anybody, but I slaughtered 25 roosters on Saturday. I didn't personally, but there's a very nice processor, Hemlock Hills Farms nearby, and they do that," she told The Daily Meal. But if that sounds like a little too much effort, you can likely find high-quality chicken from a local butcher or farmer's market. To follow Stewart's method, you'll want to separate your bird into pieces, then boil it with water, salt, onions, leeks, carrots, and garlic to make stock. Then, you can take your chicken out, slice out chunks of meat, and add them back into the pot right before you serve your soup. This way, you get the most out of your whole bird, since you're deploying it for flavorful stock as well as soup meat.

If you want to use the Instant Pot, however, you can toss your chicken and other ingredients in this device for about 25 minutes to make the stock. And as a bonus, you'll likely have plenty of leftover cooked poultry here, since it won't all go in the pot. Take a page out of Stewart's book and shred or chop it up into a yummy chicken salad, along with any of the extra veggies and herbs from your soup.

Static Media owns and operates The Daily Meal and Tasting Table