Chicken Broth

A low FODMAP chicken broth simmered with carrots, celery, leek and scallion greens, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorns.

Prep 15 min

Cook 4 hr

Serves 10

Gluten-freeDairy-free

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 lb (1.4 to 1.8 kg) chicken; a whole chicken, a carcass plus wings, or bone-in thighs and drumsticks
• 12 cups (2.8 L) cold filtered water
• 2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
• 1 to 2 stalks celery (up to about 100 g), roughly chopped
• Green tops of 1 large leek, rinsed and roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
• Green tops of 4 to 5 scallions, roughly chopped
• 6 sprigs fresh parsley
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
• Salt, to taste (added after straining)

Instructions

Build the Pot

1. Place the chicken in a large stockpot or slow cooker. Don't rinse raw chicken; it splashes bacteria around the sink.
2. Add the carrots, celery, leek greens, scallion greens, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorns.
3. Pour in the cold water. It should cover everything by an inch or two. Do not add salt yet.

Simmer

1. Stovetop: bring to a gentle boil over medium-high heat, then drop to low. Foam will rise; skim it off with a spoon for the first few minutes. Hold at a bare simmer (small occasional bubbles, not a rolling boil) for 3 to 4 hours.
2. Slow cooker: do not put the insert on a burner. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours, skimming once near the end.
3. If the water drops below the solids during a long simmer, top it off with hot water.

Strain and Cool

1. Turn off the heat and let the pot sit for 10 minutes so the solids settle.
2. Pour through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean pot or large bowl. Discard the vegetables and aromatics. Pull any usable meat off the bones for another use.
3. For a clearer broth, strain a second time through cheesecloth.
4. Measure the broth: it makes about 10 cups, and one serving is 1 cup. Top up with water if it cooked down below 10 cups, then salt to taste.
5. Cool quickly by setting the container in an ice bath or dividing into shallow containers. Refrigerate within 2 hours of cooking.
6. Skim the solid fat layer off the top the next day if you want a leaner broth, or leave it for richness.

Tips & Substitutions

• Use whatever chicken you have. A whole bird gives the best balance of flavor and body. A leftover roast carcass plus 1 to 2 pounds of wings works almost as well, and wings alone make a rich gelatinous broth.
• Leek greens and scallion tops are the onion swap. Fructans are concentrated in the white bulb of both plants; the dark green tops are low-FODMAP and carry the onion flavor you want in a broth. Monash lists leek greens as low FODMAP at 1 cup chopped (75g), and they test low in much larger amounts; scallion greens are low up to 3/4 cup (75g). See onion substitutes for a low-FODMAP diet for more options.
• Add garlic-infused olive oil at the end if you want a garlic note. Stir 1 to 2 teaspoons into the finished broth. Adding it to the simmering pot wastes the flavor.
• Skip pre-seasoned rotisserie chicken. Grocery-store rotisserie birds are usually rubbed with onion and garlic powder, which will leach into the broth.
• If you don't want to make it, Fody Low-FODMAP Chicken Soup Base and Gourmend Organic Chicken Broth are Monash-certified and onion/garlic-free. Most other supermarket broths (Swanson, Pacific, Kitchen Basics, Better Than Bouillon) contain onion or garlic.
• Celery is dose-dependent for mannitol. 1 to 2 stalks spread across a 10-cup batch keeps the per-bowl amount small. If you're sensitive to polyols, use one stalk or skip it.

Why This Works

The store-bought broth trap. Swanson, Pacific, Kitchen Basics, and Better Than Bouillon almost all list onion powder, garlic powder, or both in their ingredient decks. A single cup can put a sensitive reader over the fructan threshold before the soup even starts.

Leek greens and scallion tops do the work. Most of the fructans in leeks and scallions sit in the white bulb, and the green tops are low FODMAP at tested serves. The greens carry the flavor that makes broth taste like broth, and they are low FODMAP at the amounts used.

Celery is fine in a broth context. Celery's FODMAP load is mannitol, and it climbs with serve size. One to two stalks spread across 10 or so cups of broth keeps the per-bowl amount well under the low FODMAP serve Monash lists, about 1 stalk (50g).

Homemade is the baseline. Because onion and garlic powder are in almost every commercial stock, a clean homemade pot is the only way to know exactly what's in the broth you're cooking with.

Storage

Refrigerate in sealed containers at 40°F (4°C) or below for 3 to 4 days. For longer storage, freeze in 2-cup portions for soups and stews, and in a silicone ice-cube tray (about 2 tablespoons per cube) for deglazing pans or finishing sauces. Frozen broth keeps for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge, or add cubes straight to a hot pan.