Chicken Broth Bowls [Plus One hour Instant Pot Chicken Broth]

If there’s a recipe I’ve shared here that I remake most often, it has to be broth. Bone broth, vegetable broth and now chicken broth. The reason, broth bowls are the most comforting and feel good meal, plus all broths utilize things you’d otherwise throw away, making you feel pretty darn good about creating something amazing from nothing.

Chicken broth is the latest broth I’ve added to my rotation, and I’ve been making it in the Instant Pot which takes all of one hour and needs no supervision.

Broth keeps well in the freezer for months and can be used for a lot of things. I use it any time a recipe calls for broth, in sauces, to cook grains or my personal favorite, broth bowls. Broth bowls are essentially broth with loads of veggies, a protein and noodles.

Before we get to the two recipes (Instant Pot Chicken Broth and Chicken Broth Bowls), a few notes on my methods / ingredients used:

Instant Pot Chicken Broth Notes

I use a combination of bones / wings from whole chickens I’ve cleaned and cut. I detailed here how I use up a whole chicken, and one of the things I do, is the pieces that I know no one will eat and will end up being discarded (very bony portions, wings, innards) I keep in a Ziplock bag in the freezer instead of cooking them. I add to this bag as I use up more chickens. When I have enough, I use those pieces for a bone broth. Altogether I generally use about a kilogram of bones for one batch of bone broth.

You can also use a whole chicken for the broth or buy a packet of wings / smaller pieces of chicken. I prefer using pieces with little meat, so I can discard all the bones without feeling like I’m throwing away a full piece of chicken. You can however use a whole chicken and then shred the meat off the bone once it’s cooked, to be used as the protein inside the bowl.

As I don’t know what I’ll be using broth for, I don’t spice it when cooking it – no salt, no pepper. Just bones, vegetables, water and bay leaves. Depending on what I’m using it for I’ll add the necessary spicing.

I also don’t peel any vegetables – not even the onions. It all adds extra flavour so I just scrub them well or use organic options. You end up discarding them.

While the Instant Pot makes it easier to make Chicken broth, you can also make it in a slow cooker using this method, but leave out the roasting and cook it for more time (around 6 hours). Alternatively, you can cook it on your stove in a large pot for 3-5 hours like you would for a chicken soup. This recipe yields about 5 liters of broth. It will depend on how big the cooker you’re cooking it in and how much water you add. I add water up until the max line on the Instant Pot after filling it with the bones and veg, after draining it out I’ll get approximately 5 liters.

Chicken Broth Bowl Notes

I used chicken as the added protein – choosing to steam the chicken pieces in the Instant Pot (method included below). You can also bake them in the oven before shredding and adding them to the bowls. I used drumsticks as that’s what I had, but you can use any pieces – breasts / cutlets would be easier as you don’t have to de-bone them.

The recipe below served 6, but it’s easy to adjust to amount you need. You’ll want 1 piece of chicken per person and about 1 – ½ cups of broth per bowl.

Noodles to me are an essential part of any broth bowl! I always use these noodles, and 1 nest feeds 1-3 people (depending on how big of an appetite they have).

The only spice used that you may not have / heard of is Galangal Powder. I came across it at Woolies and got it because of the dishes it said it was good with. It’s described as similar to ginger with notes of citrus and pepper. I use it mainly in broth bowls because I like the added flavour it gives it, but you can leave it out. If you don’t have fresh ginger use a teaspoon of ground ginger (plus more if you want)

The vegetables used can easily be switched based on your preferences. Veggies that work well in broth bowls are mushrooms, broccoli, peppers, baby marrow, spiralised carrots, snap peas and pak choi.

You can keep the broth in the fridge for 3 days, but because of the types of vegetables used it tastes best on day 1.