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I just made some steamed chicken breasts in a multicooker. Naturally, I still have water used for steaming in the bowl. It smells like and even looks like chicken soup. I'm not sure if it's good to eat, but wouldn't want to just throw it away.

What is usually done in this case?

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    What is "usually" done isn't really relevant as everyone has a different solution (and many probably do dump it). What do you want to do? What do you mean by "good to eat"? Safe? Tastes good? "Can I use this liquid to make soup?"
    – Catija
    Jan 28, 2018 at 20:26

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Actual chicken soup is based on chicken stock which is made by simmering a chicken carcass for several hours, usually with stick veg and a few herbs.

This long cooking breaks down the collagen in the bones, skin and cartilage, turning it into gelatin and extracting a lot of flavour.

The steaming water should be perfectly safe to eat but definitely isn't the same thing as chicken stock.

Maybe use it to cook rice or noodles to go with the chicken or if the breasts cam e off whole chicken then add it to the carcass to make stock if you want. But in reality it probably doesn't have that much flavour and probably isn't worth keeping unless you have an immediate use for it.

A an aside one of the great thing about poultry in general is that you can use the whole of the bird to make several dishes.

The breast meat provides good texture, the legs and thigh meat is moist and flavoursome and good for pies and stews, the carcass can be used for soup and the wings and timings can be turned into a tasty sauce or gravy.

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