👉 Chicken salt in the supermarket is often laced with MSG, yeast extract and/or anticaking agents, some contain sugar and caramel colours and I couldn’t find any that contained any chicken at all!!

You’ll find hidden ingredients under generic words like ‘natural flavour’, ‘seasoning’ or ‘flavours’ making it hard to know what you are eating.

Our recipe is a great additive-free alternative that is also nutrient-dense, especially if you use a quality salt like Celtic sea salt and will last in the pantry for months, if not years.

If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook you may have seen that I made the most of a discounted chlorine-free chicken a while back AND from that one chicken, I made

🍗 Bone broth – almost 2 litres worth!
🍗 Bone broth powder – using the entire chicken as I wanted lots of meat/skin in the broth powder.
🍗 AND I made a huge jar of chicken salt.

But before I dive into how to make chicken salt – let’s rewind to where I said I used a ‘chlorine-free’ chicken.

In case you weren’t aware, most raw chickens are immersed in a chlorinated icy slurry, inside what’s called a spin chiller.

The icy slurry is a mix of heavily chlorinated water up to 150 parts per million (p.p.e), sometimes even higher. The chickens spin and tumble in this water for 20 minutes absorbing this liquid.

YEAH, but nah, no thanks!!!

That watery fluid at the bottom of the bag, that is remnants of the chlorine solution 🤢 I don’t even want to know how much has been absorbed into the chicken itself, but I am guessing it is not ideal for eating, let alone making concentrated things like stocks and broths.

Wherever we can (in fact, I will go without chicken if I can’t get air-chilled), we purchase air-chilled chickens as this uses cold air to cool down the chickens before packaging.

Air-chilled chickens are a little hard to source, so talk to your local butcher or search online and see what you can find near you. I get mine from a local IGA, and sometimes Coles has them as well – also, please note that some air-chilled chickens still use a very small amount of chlorine, normally at only 20 p.p.m and are only given a spray-wash lasting 3-4 seconds. A whole lot better than above.

I am in Tasmania, Australia and choose Nichols chicken as these are both chlorine-free and air-chilled (sorry I am not sure what is available in other states or countries).

For more info, check out this handy post HERE.

Okay, now onto the fun stuff… and while this seems long and tedious, I can one million times promise you that it is worth it in the end… so don’t get turned off by the steps, trust the process and enjoy the results. My total time spent on this was maybe an hour, the rest of the time it was in the slow cooker or dehydrator. It is not hard nor complicated, I wouldn’t do it if it was.

Step One – Create your Broth (liquid and powder)

I ended up with 2 litres of bone broth liquid goodness, which I froze and will use in recipes such as soups, gravy and even cooking rice. I also treat my dog to a small bowl full here and there, she loves a frozen cube on hot days.

There is a full recipe in our cookbook Everyday Additive-Free for both chicken and beef broth, however as this is a very versatile recipe, this is what I did this particular time (it changes each time as I try and use whatever veggies I have on hand):

  • One whole chicken
  • 4 x carrots, cut roughly
  • Diced celery, stem and leaves, approx. 1 cup
  • Spring onions, large handful (brown or red onions are fine also)
  • 1 tablespoon each of sea salt and black peppercorns
  • I also added a shrivelled apple, cored, and half a tomato, as they were lying around in the fridge -as I said, broth is a great way to use up older veggies
  • Fill to the top of your slow cooker with water and cook for at least 8-12 hours, or up to 24 hours
  • Once cooked, strain off the liquid and set aside all the meaty/veggie bits for later
  • Bottle and store the liquid in the fridge for up to a week or freeze in ice cube trays

Step Two – Bone Broth Powder

👉🏻 Using the veggie/meaty leftovers from above

Remove ALL the bones and blend the vegetables/meat into a smooth paste.

Spread the paste thinly on baking paper. Dehydrate until completely dry. I had mine at 75֯C.

NOTE – You can use the oven, but you will need to keep an eye on it.  If doing it in the oven, have on a low temp, approx. 50-70֯C.  It would also be best to sit the baking paper straight onto your oven racks (no tray), as this will promote an even airflow over the top and bottom of the paste, allowing it to dehydrate quicker and more effectively.

Continue the drying process until it is completely dry and crumbly. This may take up to 8-10 hours. The thinner you spread the paste, the quicker it will dry.

Once completely dry and cold, blitz into a fine powder and store in an airtight jar for months (up to a year).

NOTE – If you pour this mix into your jar while warm you might end up with condensation in the jar, which will cause your powder to go mouldy. Allow to cool completely before pouring into jars. I leave mine in a large container, under a tea towel, overnight.

Step Three – Chicken Salt

Now that you have your broth powder you can create the chicken salt – using 1:1 ratio. I decided to blitz it together in my food processor, just to make sure it was fully combined and nice and fine. But that is optional. At this stage free to add any dried herbs you wish, some parsley or garlic would be yummy.

That’s it – you now have yourself a nutrient-dense chicken salt that actually contains chicken and isn’t full of harsh additives as mentioned above.

Even though I started the process on Saturday and didn’t finish until Monday the longest parts were when the slow cooker and dehydrator did their thing. My personal time spent on this was maybe an hour, if that.

This has saved me SO MUCH money, at least $150, maybe more, and will last me ages! Plus I had full control of the ingredients!!

Give it a try and let me know how you go or take some pics and tag us in it over on your socials @additivefreelifestyle

Much love,
Tracey x