You can use anything. I make mine with backs and feet, along with any scraps I've saved in the freezer, and it turns out marvelously good. The backs have some meat clinging to them, and the feet add gelatinous goodness. In my opinion, the feet are the most critical to good stock.

You can use whatever parts of the chicken you want to make stocks. The white meat is not necessary and I think the dark meat makes a richer stock anyway. If I am not using the remains of a roasted chicken dinner (my preferred method) I buy one of those jumbo packs of legs and thighs. I skin the meat and chop the legs and thighs in half (the better to get at all the yummy flavorful bits) and make stock out of them. If you time it right you can pull meat of the legs and thighs to go into your soup.

I use thighs and drumsticks to make the stock too. I don't roast them first, just add to a pot with a couple cut up onions and boil until it's tasty (an hour or so). Unlike jenh718, I leave the skin on and don't chop them up, makes it a little fattier, but after a day in the fridge the fat congeals at the top and you can remove it. Take the meat out, pour the stock into a new pot or jar through a fine mesh sieve covered with a paper towel. Shred the boiled meat and add for soup or use for other things like pot pie or stir fry. Breast meat is too expensive to make stock with and I like the dark meat flavor more anyway.

Like jenh718 I use whatever chicken bones and bits (leftovers from meals of roasted chicken, whole or parts) and more rarely, like DCarl1, boney parts from the grocery. I prefer to roast to render the fat and add the flavor and dark color roasting adds to the stock, but if I'm in a rush, hey...

The absolutely BEST stock I have EVER tasted or used as a soup base, for a very special soup for a special crowd comes from THE GIVF OF SOUTHERN COOKING by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock. Called "Miss Lewis's Very Rich Chicken Broth" it calls for a 2.5-3 lb. whole chicken, salt, 4 TB of butter, 1 small celery stalk, no leaves and 6 cups of water (preferrable bottled-I used the big drinking water gallons from the supermarket). You rinse the chicken well, chop it up into 2 inch pieces with a cleaver, rub cut surfaces with with salt and set aside.

In big Duthch oven, melt butter until hot and foaming, add chicken pieces and stir well to coat. Cook, stirring until the skin is golden but NOT brown. Reduce the heat to very low, add celery and cover tightly. Check every 5 minutes and stir well again. After 20 minutes the chicken has released its essence enough so that liquid comes up near the top of the chicken pieces. Add water and bring to a GENTLE simmer. Cook slowly for 20 minutes, skimming often. Strain the broth and discard the chicken pieces and celery (flavorless by now).

Cool and refrigerate to separate the rest of the fat after it has congealed.

Fabulous, but then all Miss Lewis's recipes are.

I frequently pick up only thighs and drumsticks to make a quick stock. I dont chop them up, I just:
- brown the thighs and drumsticks to beef up the flavor
- pull them out to brown in onions, celery and carrots in the rendered chicken fat
- Thrown the chicken parts back in with water, bay leaf, peppercorns & some salt
- boil,, covered, for ~ an hour.

If you only have thigh and drumstick bones laying around (I save all mine in the freezer), just follow the same method as above, without the chicken browning and you're good to go. Great stock!

I've even made acceptable chicken stock from wings. We had a big bag of wings in the freezer (my wife loves them and I can do without them) so I used them for stock, pretty much like everyone else has described.

Don't forget the peppercorns!

We eat as much of the meat off the chicken as we can before making stock. Otherwise it feels like a waste of food.

I break up some of the bones, and roast them to a dark brown and deglaze the baking sheet and throw everything into the slow cooker with water/spices for 12 hours. Makes fabulous stock that doesn't need salt, and you aren't left with a bunch of fat on the top. I don't see why you would have to leave any meat on the bones.

If you're not whole chicken eaters, just ask the butcher for 'backs and necks' and make stock with those. you can usually get them cheap (~<$1/lbs). I toss them under the broiler to brown for a few minutes while I chop some onion, carrot and celery. toss into a slow cooker and cover with water. 6-12 hours later, you've got some tasty goodness, all for less than ~$5 usually. then make soup, or freeze in muffin tins for use later. I usually just save bones in a bag in the freezer when we make chicken and make a large batch every 2-3 months and make one pot of soup and freeze the remainder. My slow cooker holds 6qts, so I max that out each time to save time/effort.

i'm not a fan of white meat, but even if i did, i think i'd avoid it for stock. dark meat is so much more flavorful & doesn't dry out completely in the process (take it out when it's cooked and let the other stuff simmer away). i use whole chicken legs and turkey wings for stock (along with the aromatics and such). makes damn good stock.

I think a mix of chicken pieces works best - I try to have at least some raw meat on the bone and some roasted meaty bones. I also usually end up with a mix of light and dark meat.

And regarding the dark meat, you might try using the thighs or legs in a braised chicken recipe. My husband and I both thought we hated dark meat until we had it cooked that way - dark meat is far better than light in a braise, and the flavor doesn't have that weird dark-meat flavor we don't like in a roasted bird. (The recipe that made us dark-meat converts is a simple Alice Waters one: http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-10-17/food/17267240_1_art-of-simple-food-chez-panisse-chicken-legs/2).

I, too save up bones from past meals in the freezer, even if we gnawed on them - hey you are (gently) BOILING the bones, so they are sterilized. We are primarily dark meat eaters, too... and I do make an acceptable stock with just those, but if I want really good gelatinous stock, I buy the backs and feet, as suggested above.

And if you add a tablespoon of vinegar to your water, it will leach the calcium from the chicken bones, and make your stock more nutritious. You won't be able to taste the vinegar.

The only times I ever make chicken stock are from bones that have been picked clean - I'm pretty much vegetarian, but if people are eating meat around me, I tend to think there's something vaguely wrong about not using everything you can from it.

That said, it's always tasted very good - add a few onions (leaving the skin on adds a gorgeous color!), carrots, celery stalks, allspice berries, bay leaves, salt pepper, garlic... yum!