5 delicious recipes featuring chicken broth

Chicken broth has a variety of well-recognised health benefits as it’s packed full of protein and minerals. It’s a delicious and nutritious ingredient to have in your kitchen to add to dishes. 

And if you’re looking for ways to warm yourself up with this winter with chicken broth, then read on below to find out how to use chicken broth in recipes that are both easy and inviting. 

Classic chicken noodle soup

Winter warmers don’t get much tastier than a classic chicken noodle soup. Hearty chicken broth, fresh chicken, spicy ginger, sweet carrots, and comforting noodles all come together in a traditional soup dish that’s been enjoyed across the world for many generations. You can add any vegetables that you’d like to the soup, but you’ll find it usually made with sweetcorn, carrots, and sometimes even dumplings are dropped in for that comfort food feeling. Adding a dash of soy sauce to the mix heightens the umami taste, and strong ingredients like celery and spring onions will help to lift and freshen the flavors for a balanced bowl. Broth is a fantastic base for any soup recipe, and once you’ve had your fill of a classic chicken noodle soup, try exploring these 15 best broth recipes, so you have a different soup to enjoy every week throughout the winter.

Though you will often see a risotto recipe recommending the use of stock, broth is actually the more traditional ingredient to use when making a risotto. Given the closeness of these two ingredients they can easily be used interchangeably in recipes, but broth will provide your risotto with a really delicious depth of flavor that sometimes can’t quite be replicated with stock. Risotto is surprisingly simple to make, but it’s not a dish that you can walk away from. A well-made risotto requires constant stirring, to ensure you reach the desired consistency and texture. It’s important to strike a balance as too much stirring will cause your risotto to become thick and unpleasant in texture, but too little will leave rice stuck and burning to the bottom of the pan. Use your judgement and you will end up with an irresistible creamy risotto made with mouthwatering chicken broth. A grating of parmesan cheese to serve makes this dish even more indulgent. 

If you have the time to make gravy from scratch, then you’ll reap the rewards of the tastiest gravy if you can make it at home using chicken broth. The broth adds strong savory notes that will complement your roast chicken and vegetables perfectly. You can make the gravy in a few minutes using chicken broth. As usual, you’ll need to make a smooth paste using butter and flour, and then whisk in the broth slowly before bringing to a boil to reduce. Whilst it’s simmering you can add seasoning or spices as desired, and your gravy can be ready to serve after a mere few minutes, hot and tasty for your guests to enjoy.

Stuffing recipes can be very personal to the chef, depending on how their family has prepared it for generations, but chicken broth is often a secret ingredient used in many savory stuffing recipes. Broth adds flavor, whilst simultaneously helping to keep the stuffing moist and inviting. If you find it still needs a little more liquid, then you can add water, or even eggs, to help with the binding of the stuffing. Similarly shaped, meatballs are also a brilliant way to use up any leftover broth meat. As the meat used to make broth gives a lot of its flavor to the liquid, it can be slightly bland, so using it in dishes like meatballs masks any lighter flavor and makes sure you don’t need to throw it away. 

Last, but not least, in our pick of the top ways to use chicken broth in your kitchen is a vegetable stir-fry. Of course you can make stir-fry very simply in the wok, and just add a few elements like soy sauce and honey, but chicken broth will take your stir-fry to the next level. Once you’ve cooked the vegetables for a few minutes, the chicken broth is introduced and left to simmer at a lower temperature to impart flavor and moisture. It only adds a few more minutes to the dish, and in our opinion is more than worth it for an elite vegetable stir-fry. If you want to make a fully vegetarian stir-fry, then you can try using vegetable broth in place of the chicken broth, for a plant-based approach to this dish. If you’re planning to use the chicken broth, however, you could add pieces of chicken to the stir-fry too. Just make sure you cook the chicken all the way through before adding the veggies, so there’s no pink meat remaining.