Authentic Italian-American Chicken Broth (Brodo di Pollo): A Timeless Family Tradition for Perfect Tortellini and Beyond
While this recipe might evoke nostalgic memories of holiday feasts, particularly Thanksgiving, the truth is that a rich, homemade chicken broth, or ‘brodo,’ is a staple in our Italian-American household throughout the entire year. Yet, for many, including my family, no holiday celebration would truly be complete without a steaming bowl of freshly made Tortellini in Brodo. Across the United States, and indeed around the world, families gather during festive seasons, lovingly preparing cherished dishes to share with their nearest and dearest. For us, every holiday is a precious occasion to honor an enduring Italian-American family tradition: the painstaking preparation of thousands of delicate, hand-rolled tortellini, destined to swim in a homemade ‘brodo’ or savory broth.
This exquisite broth is a culinary legacy from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, the ancestral home of my family, where the origins of both this broth and the iconic tortellini pasta can be traced back centuries. It’s a taste of history, a warm embrace in a bowl, and a testament to the power of traditional cooking. Today, I am delighted to share with you my family’s time-honored recipe for this incredible chicken broth. The detailed recipe and step-by-step instructions for crafting the intricate little tortellini pasta were previously shared on my blog in January 2009. This post, however, will provide the comprehensive, step-by-step guide specifically for preparing the chicken broth, a crucial element that I didn’t fully detail in the earlier tortellini post.
Andiamo a cucina!
(Let’s get to the kitchen!)
Before we dive into the cooking process, take a moment to scroll down this post to find the full recipe card, which lists all the necessary ingredients. It’s a good practice to gather all your ingredients and tools on the counter before you begin. This ‘mise en place’ approach ensures a smooth and enjoyable cooking experience. Once everything is laid out, you can confidently follow the step-by-step instructions, complete with photo guidance, to create your perfect homemade chicken broth (brodo).
Crafting Your Traditional Chicken Broth: A Step-by-Step Guide
Making a truly exceptional chicken and beef broth from scratch is a labor of love, but the depth of flavor and nourishing qualities it imparts are unparalleled. Here’s a detailed breakdown of each step, ensuring you achieve a clear, rich, and utterly delicious brodo.
Preparation: Cleaning and Cutting the Meats and Vegetables
- Prepare the Chicken: Begin by thoroughly cleaning your chicken. Give it a good “bath” under cold running water, removing any giblets or unwanted contents from the cavity. This ensures a clean foundation for your broth.
- Cut the Chicken: Instead of cooking the chicken whole, cut it into several large pieces. This not only allows the chicken to cook more evenly but also facilitates a faster release of its rich flavors and nutrients into the broth. Large pieces are ideal to prevent the meat from breaking down too quickly and becoming overly shredded during the long simmering process.
- Chop the Vegetables: Wash and chop all your vegetables – carrots, onion, and celery – into large chunks. The key here is not precision, as these vegetables will be strained out later, but rather to ensure they are large enough to withstand hours of simmering without disintegrating. Larger pieces also contribute to a clearer broth.
- Prepare the Beef Roast: Using a sharp knife, cut your beef roast into approximately 2 to 3 large sections. Similar to the chicken, these larger pieces will slowly render their beefy essence, adding incredible depth and complexity to your broth. The soup bones, if you’re fortunate enough to find them, are crucial for adding gelatin and richness, contributing to a more satisfying mouthfeel.
Assembling and Initial Cooking
- Fill the Pot: Select a LARGE, deep pot – this is truly an essential kitchen investment for any serious cook! Fill it approximately halfway with cold water. Ensure that there is ample space from the top of the pot to accommodate all your ingredients without the water overflowing once they are added.
- Combine Ingredients: Carefully place all your prepared ingredients – the chicken pieces, beef roast, beef soup bones, carrots, onion, and celery – into the pot of cold water. Adding them to cold water allows the flavors to extract gradually as the water heats up, which is ideal for a flavorful broth.
I was so fortunate to cut fresh Italian parsley from my garden just minutes before chopping it up and adding it to the pot. The freshness truly makes a difference! You can see the nearly bare trees in the background, but my rosemary is thriving next to the parsley, and surprisingly, there’s still rhubarb growing to the right of the parsley!
Oh my goodness, fresh Italian parsley in November! Seriously? What a delightful surprise and JOY!
Simmering and Skimming for Clarity
- Bring to a Boil: Increase the heat to high and bring the pot to a low, rolling boil. As it heats, you will notice impurities rising to the surface.
- Reduce and Simmer: Immediately lower the heat to a gentle simmer. It’s crucial not to boil the broth vigorously, as this can make it cloudy. Simmer gently until the beef is fork-tender.
- Continual Skimming: During this simmering process, which typically takes about 2 to 3 hours, continually remove the “junky stuff” (scum or impurities) that rises to the top using a fine-mesh strainer or a ladle. This step is vital for achieving a clear, clean-tasting broth. Patience here pays off in the final product’s appearance and purity of flavor.
The Crucial Straining Process
Achieving a crystal-clear broth requires careful straining. This step can be a bit labor-intensive but is absolutely worth the effort for that perfect, translucent brodo.
- First Strain: Carefully remove all the large ingredients – the chicken, beef, bones, and cooked vegetables – from the broth using a large hand strainer or slotted spoon. Set the meats aside for later use (we’ll discuss this in detail below!).
- Fine Straining: Set up a colander or large strainer lined with several layers of very thin tea towels or cheesecloth over another large, clean pot. Slowly and carefully pour the hot broth through the lined colander into the new pot. Be extremely cautious, as the broth is very hot! This step is often easier and safer with two people: one to hold the colander steady and the other to pour.
- Repeat for Clarity: Continue to strain the chicken broth through clean tea towels at least two more times, or even more, until the broth is completely clear and free of any sediment or ingredient remains. Each straining session removes finer particles, resulting in a beautifully clear broth.
- Final Seasoning: Taste the finished broth and add more salt to taste, if necessary. Remember, the broth will reduce slightly, concentrating flavors, so season judiciously.
- Refrigeration and Skimming Fat: If you prepare the broth the night before (which is highly recommended), refrigerate it overnight. The next day, any fat or grease will solidify on the surface, making it incredibly easy to skim off and discard. This step ensures an even cleaner, less greasy broth.
Once you have this exquisite, fresh homemade broth, it becomes the perfect base for countless recipes. As mentioned earlier, our family tradition involves making this broth for every holiday, serving it with our delicate, hand-twisted tortellini. It’s a culinary masterpiece that truly elevates any dish it graces.
I highly recommend that you purchase a large, deep pot for all of your soup, stew, sauce, chili, and broth recipes. You will use it endlessly in your kitchen! It’s an indispensable tool for any home cook.
Here’s a really good one on Amazon:
20-Quart Aluminum Pot by IMUSLA (Under $25.00 as of 10/2019)
Maximizing Your Ingredients: Creative Uses for Leftover Meats
Jenny, a valued reader in our blog community, recently posed an excellent question: how to utilize the leftover chicken and beef from the broth after it has been removed. What a fantastic and practical inquiry! It’s wonderful to make the most of every ingredient, and the meat from your brodo is incredibly tender and flavorful. Here are my top suggestions for transforming these delicious leftovers into new meals:
After making the tortellini broth (brodo), repurpose the tender cooked meats into these delightful dishes:
- The very first recipe I always turn to for the cooked chicken is CHICKEN SALAD. The meat is incredibly tender and absorbs flavors beautifully – yum, yum, yum!
- Secondly, the shredded chicken is perfect for making a comforting CHICKEN NOODLE CASSEROLE. It’s a hearty family favorite.
- For a Tex-Mex twist, you can use the chicken in CHEESY CHICKEN ENCHILADAS. Its tenderness makes it ideal for shredding and mixing with spices.
- Another classic comfort food is CHICKEN POT PIE. The pre-cooked chicken saves a significant amount of preparation time.
- And last, but certainly not least, is a simple, soul-warming CHICKEN SOUP! This makes good use of the tender meat in a new broth (or even some of your freshly made brodo, if you have extra).
For the beef, its rich flavor and tenderness from the long simmer make it versatile for many dishes:
- Simple but satisfying BEEF SANDWICHES, perhaps thinly sliced with a bit of horseradish or au jus.
- Next, you can shred or chop it and spice it up (or not) for flavorful TACOS & BEEF QUESADILLAS or ENCHILADAS.
- Also, think about hearty soups like BEEF & BARLEY and/or VEGETABLE SOUP, where the beef adds robust flavor.
- Transform it into a comforting classic: SHEPHERD’s PIE or SCOTTISH COTTAGE PIE, topped with mashed potatoes.
- Last, but not least: for something exotic, try a zesty THAI BEEF SALAD.
Chicken Broth (Brodo e Pollo) for Tortellini
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Author: Roz | La Bella Vita Cucina
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Ingredients
Units
Scale
- One 6–pound chicken (hen)
- 1 package (beef) soup bones (if you can get them)
- 1 4–pound beef roast
- 3 carrots, cut in 3’s
- 1 large onion, cut in 1/4’s
- 3 celery stalks with leaves, cut into thirds
- 1/4 bunch of Italian parsley, chopped
- salt
Instructions
- Give that chicken a nice bath (clean it) and empty the contents of the cavity inside.
- Cut up into large pieces so that it cooks a little bit faster than if you cook it whole.
- Cut up all of your veggies.
- Cut your beef roast up into about 2 or 3 large sections.
- Fill a LARGE deep pot half way full of water.
- Make sure that you have enough room from the top of the pot to put the rest of the ingredients in without overflowing the water.
- Put all of the ingredients into the pot of water.
- Cut fresh Italian parsley from my garden just minutes before chopping it up and putting it into the pot…..it is fresh, fresh, fresh!
- Bring up the heat to high and get it to a low, rolling boil.
- Immediately lower the heat and simmer until the beef is tender.
- During this simmer, continually remove the junky stuff that rises to the top with a strainer.
- The cooking on simmer and straining process takes about 2 – 3 hours.
- Take all of the ingredients out of the broth with a hand strainer.
- With very thin tea towels covering a colander/strainer, pour the broth through them into another pot……this is a lot of work and usually needs two people to do this.
- Be careful, the broth is very hot while you do this!
- Continue to strain the broth into clean tea towels about two more times until the broth is completely clear and free of any ingredient remains.
- Taste, add more salt to taste.
- If you make this the night before, refrigerate it, and then the next day, skim off any fat/grease from the top (it will solidify in the frig and be very easy to remove).
Notes
- A Step-by-Step Photo Guide is on my blog to help you make this delicious Chicken Broth.
What are your most cherished recipes to prepare for any holiday? I’d love to know and share it with our community here! Share your culinary traditions and inspire fellow home cooks.