Bone Broth is a major talking point right now for a lot of different people, for a lot of different reasons. Whether you’re trying to heal your gut health or simple make and eat more whole foods, bone broth is the thing for you. Here is how I make weekly bone broth with minimal waste and without costing me an extra cent.
Bone Broth Ingredients
There are three main ingredients in bone broth: bones (with or without meat), vegetables, and salt/spices.
Bones: I like to use chicken bones because they are more accessible to me than beef bones, but if you have beef bones use beef bones.
*Tip* Add chicken feet to chicken stock for an added collagen boost.
Vegetables: Any root vegetables will add amazing flavour and nutrients to your broth. Other vegetables to include are things like onions, garlic, hearty leafy greens (Kale, broccoli, cabbage), mushrooms, peppers. There are a few things that I recommend against using. These things include: tomatoes, potatoes, and light leafy greens such as lettuce.
Spices: Salt and pepper is a must, especially if you intend on drinking the bone broth, but otherwise the spices are up to you. Use what you already have or what you prefer. Herbs such as oregano, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, and even ginger root can all add amazing flavour and health benefits as well.
An acid: Apple cider vinegar is the preferred acid, but you can use almost any vinegar or potentially a white wine (however, this is not always recommended as it may flavour your broth in a way that you don’t want)
How to Prepare Your Ingredients
Regardless of where you live groceries can be expensive, and it is not always in the budget to buy ingredients with the sole purpose of making broth, when those ingredients could be used in soups or roasts or for salads. How I solve the problem of over consuming and get the most of the products I do buy is with a freezer bag. Any bag or container will do as you don’t have to worry about freezer burn. As you cook your meals for the week instead of composting or throwing out your scraps, put all your carrots peels, onion skins, mushroom stems, wilted herbs and bones into a freezer bag. This will save you waste and save you time.
*Note* you should roast beef bones for about 20 minutes prior to freezing or putting into your broth. However chicken bones can be used raw.
Once you’ve collected everything you are ready to make broth!
Making Broth
There are three main methods of making broth. All of them are good in their own way and for their own reasons. Read through the methods and decide which one works best for you. This may change depending on the time you have available or the amount of control you want over the outcome.
- On the stove
On the stove is the most traditional way of making broth, but can be the more time consuming method. Take your ingredients, fresh or frozen, and put them in a stock pot with enough water to cover them. Add a tablespoon (ish) of vinegar (Acid), and let sit for half an hour to an hour. This allows the vinegar to start breaking down the bones allowing for the most amount of nutrients to be extracted.
Next you will turn the pot to high and bring to a boil. Once boiled, reduce to a simmer and let go for twelve hours (some people even recommend twenty four hours). You may have to add more water occasionally so that the water doesn’t entirely simmer away.
This method is a bit more time consuming and requires a bit more attention, but will often have better results since you can adjust things as your broth simmers.
- In the Instapot
Put ingredients into your Instapot and fill to the “max fill line”. If you are pressure cooking DO NOT exceed the “max fill line”; it is there for a reason. Add your vinegar, and close the lid. You can either wait half an hour to an hour and then set your Instapot or your Instapot may have a delayed start button. Follow the instructions of your Instapot, and pressure cook for one to two hours– no less than one hour– after the initial half an hour to an hour.
This method is great if you need broth pronto, but it will yield a less gelatinous broth than a slow cooker method.
- In a Crockpot/ Slow Cooker
Crockpot instructions are exactly the same as the stove top method. The only difference is the Crockpot allows you to have the best of both worlds. It will often yield a fairly gelatinous broth, while allowing you to be pretty hands off. I will typically use the slow cook method on my Instapot and run it for about twelve hours overnight.
Uses of Bone Broth
Congratulations! You’ve made bone broth, now what do you do with it? Regardless of the method you use, once the broth has cooled you will need to stain it–fine mesh strainer and/or cheese cloth works the best– and store it. I prefer storing the broth that I will use for the week in a glass jar in the fridge (as you can see I’ve already used most of it this week). It will only keep for a week in the fridge; dispose of any unused broth after a week.
If you know that you will have too much to use in one week, bone broth freezes amazing. I like to free mine in two cup containers that I can take out and add to soups or sauces or whatever I want. Pre measuring the containers is useful, because you never have to second guess how many containers you need, and won’t end up wasting anything.
Of course, the most common use of broth is for soups. Homemade bone broth will add so much flavour and so many nutrients to any soups you make, giving you a delicious, nourishing meal. Some other uses of bone broth are to use it to cook rice or pasta. I love making rice with half broth and half water, and topping it with a creamy chicken dish. You can also add it to sauces to thin them out or change the flavour. The last thing you can do with broth is simply to drink it. Many people enjoy a cupful of bone broth to help support proper gut health and for many other reasons.
However you use your bone broth, I hope you enjoy your delicious nutrient dense liquid gold!