Chicken soup and other soups made with meat or other fatty ingredients render fat as they cook. Removing the fat before serving makes the soup more attractive, palatable and healthful. Skimming fat from soup, also called degreasing, can be done while the dish is warm, but is easier when the soup has been chilled.
Instructions
1. Cover your soup pot with a cover, or plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least six hours if possible. Fat will skim off more easily and quickly if the soup is cold.
2. Uncover the chilled soup and scoop the fat layer off of the top of the soup with a large spoon. In many cases, the fat will have solidified into one large piece that you may even be able to lift off by hand. Chilled fat most often looks yellow or light orange in color.
3. If you don't have time to chill the soup, skim fat off a hot soup carefully to avoid burning yourself. Hot fat usually looks dark orange or yellow, and kind of bubbly. Dip a flat spoon just below the surface of the soup to skim off the fat. Spooning down too far into the pot might cause you to catch mostly broth, and you will mix the fat back into the soup. If this happens, wait for the fat to float back up to the top and try again.
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