Ingredients
- chicken, pork, beef, or turkey bones and/or feet, roasted preferred
- 1 onion, quartered
- 2 large carrots, rough chopped
- 2 stalks of celery, rough chopped
- 1 tbsp whole peppercorns
- 2 tsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- whole garlic cloves {optional}
- bay leaves {optional}
- water
Directions
- Place all of your ingredients into your stockpot, crockpot or instant pot and cover with water. The apple cider vinegar will help break down the bones and release the minerals while the mirepoix {onions, carrots, celery} will add to the flavor and nutrition.
- If you are using a stock pot or crockpot, simmer your broth for 24-36 hours; if you are using an instant pot, I find 4 hours on high pressure works best for me.
- Once your broth has simmered for the length of time mentioned above, strain your broth into clean glass jars. Using an 8 quart crock pot or instant pot I get roughly 1 gallon, or 8 pint jars of bone broth. It will be hot!
- Let the jars cool on the counter before moving to the refrigerator or freezer. If you plan to freeze broth in jars, make sure to leave at least 1” of headspace for expansion so they don’t shatter in your freezer.
Bone Broth is nothing new, but it is kind of seeing a jump in popularity the last few years. Bone broth is simply a nutritious broth made from the bones of a healthy animal (chicken, beef, pork, or turkey bones) often with some veggies and spices added in to balance out the taste and nutrient profile. Broth by traditional definition though is made from simmering meat, where stock is made from simmering bones. So is ‘bone broth’ accurate? Maybe not, but it rolls off the tongue better, don’t you think?
Why simmer bones for a long period of time? Well for one, it gives a whole new life to your leftover bones…it stretches your dollars for many more meals. One chicken carcass from a roasted or rotisserie whole chicken can yield you about a gallon of bone broth for future meals. Soups, rice, beans, gravy or just for sipping, bone broth makes a very flavorful and healthy base for made-from scratch meals. A second reason is the long simmer softens the bones and releases numerous vitamins, minerals and nutrients such as collagen that are so incredibly healing! It is rich, deep, silky and flavorful and often gelatinous or solid when chilled due to the high collagen content. Sign me up for more collagen: the building blocks of healthy skin, nails, hair and anti-aging!
In addition to collagen, bone broth is rich in calcium, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, manganese, selenium, amino acids such as glutamine, arginine, glycine, proline, Vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, K, folate, riboflavin and more. So basically…it’s like a highly available multivitamin! Bone broth has also been shown to help leaky gut issues, decrease inflammation, boost immunity, strengthen bones, muscles and remineralize teeth.
You can buy pre-made bone broth these days, but as always it is much less expensive and typically much healthier to do yourself. You can use a stockpot on the stove, a crockpot or an instant pot. If you aren’t raising your own animals, as most people are not, you can usually buy bones or chicken feet from your local butcher or save up bones in the freezer from those bone-in steaks, rotisseries or ribs you are cooking. Also don’t forget those chicken feet if you can find them, they are full of collagen. Once you have your bones, let’s simmer!
Now you have broth to sip on a cold day, broth to make homemade soup, broth for rice and beans, the possibilities are endless! Bone broth is a constant staple in our freezers here…and now to go heat up a cup.
Nicole Wilkey transitioned from a corporate job to small-scale farmer in 2015. Since then she has run California based Flicker Farm to accommodate meat pigs, mini Juliana pigs, pasture based poultry and sells goats milk soap and lotion on Etsy. Connect with Nicole on Instagram and Facebook.
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