Three part chicken dinner strategy

The best thing you can make in wintertime in a homemade chicken soup. You can add noodles, rice, or any combination, and it should always slap. A thousand times better than any junk you can get out of a can. But the key to making great chicken soup is the stock. The Swanson's crap you buy in a carton is a pale imitation of real, actual homemade stock. This is the greatest barrier to making the precious chicken soup. I have combined multiple recipes together so the by-products can be used to make stock, so that you don't have to go out of your way.

Part 1: chicken wings

Chicken wings are my favorite thing to make. They require prep up front, and then you bake the hell out of them and they can then feed a party. I make chicken wings for a group probably twice a year. Usually for a superbowl or birthday party.

Below is the best chicken wings recipe out there for oven-baked wings.

Oven wings are better, in my opinion, in a few ways: the meat is never dry, you don't have to deal with oil, and you don't have to buy some trendy kitchen gadget like an insta-pot. Honestly, it doesn't matter how you make the wings. For the three part chicken dinner strategy to work, you must buy whole wings from the grocery store, and then cut them into sections. The wing has three sections: drum, flat, and tip. The drum and flat you will eat that night, the tips you save in a freezer bag for later.

When you make wings, I recommend making a shitload. Like 5-10 lbs worth. And the reason is you can throw them in the fridge, then microwave or bake them later and they will still taste amazing. Perfect leftover lunch.

Part 2: brick chicken

This is one of my favorite meals for a weeknight because it cooks hella fast. You get a cast iron skillet and get it scorching hot, then you throw two chicken thighs on there skin-side down with a weight on top. The skin gets brown and crispy, and you get a nice contrast of texture. I also love using the rendered fat left in the skillet to fry up some carrots which taste amazing. This recipe does carrots and zucchinis, but I don't really care about zukes that much so I just peel off a bunch of carrots.

Key part of this step is too save what's left of the carrots and the thigh bones. When you remove the thigh bone, there should be lots of good chicken bits like meat and cartilage still attached. We want that, we aren't letting it go to waste.

Part 3-1: stock

Ok, for the final day, we want to start a stock in the morning and then make chicken soup in the evening. Now we take all of our tips, slimmed down carrots, and thigh bones and throw them in a stock pot. Doesn't matter if they are frozen or whatever.

Remove the stem and root from a yellow onion and cut it rough into quarters. Toss that in. Then, cut a head of garlic across the middle to expose the cloves within. Throw that all in there paper and all (doesn't matter).

That's all you need! You can add other stuff if you want. Stock sometimes calls for celery, leek, parsnips, turnips, and other stuff. That's up to you.

Fill the pot to the brim with water and simmer that shit for 8-10 hours. Check on it and give it a stir, maybe skim off some scum if it gets nasty. A lot of the water will evaporate off, and I think that's okay because it concentrates the stock.

When it's ready, strain it and throw out all the solids. What you're left with is liquid gold. Even without a ton of actual chicken leftovers, the stock will come out a rich brown color.

Part 3-2: soup

Now that you have stock, ladle some of that good stuff into your chosen soup vessel (Dutch oven is best, imo). Get some plastic containers in a tumbler shape with the screw-on lids and save the rest in the freezer. Use it for more soup, gumbo, jambalaya, whatever, it rules. Note about it though, it's probably 2-3 times as strong as the storebought junk. So however much you think you need, you should probably add half and dilute it with water.

For your soup, here's a baseline I use, but honestly do whatever you want. I like noodles and rice, but I found orzo gives me a good mix of both worlds. For herbs, I love dill, so I throw in as much as I can of that in the end.

• 2-3 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 3-4 large carrots
• 1-2 celery stalks
• 2 yellow onion
• 6+ garlic cloves
• 1 cup orzo (add for last ten minutes)
• dill
• 20 cracks of black pepper
• 5-6 teaspoons salt (to taste, at the end)

Optionals:

• Parsnip. Has a peppery flavor, quite good.
• Turnip. Excellent root vegetable for soup.
• Russet potato.

Add stuff to the dutch to oven, then add about 8-10 cups of liquid. About 4 cups of your homemade stock, then 4-6 cups of regular water. Bring everything to a simmer, then cover and set on low for 30 minutes. When you come back, stir it up and test and see if it needs more time. The carrots should have no resistance when bitten into.

Add the salt, dill, and orzo. Let it sit on the stove on low heat, cooling down and cooking the orzo. You can adjust the heat if needed. When you orzo is too your liking, serve.

The best thing about the Dutch oven is you can put the lid on and throw the whole thing in the fridge when you're done. Next day, take it out and warm it up.