Gut Healing Homemade Bone Broth.
Simple. Cheap. Nourishing.
Those are the three words that come to mind when I think of bone broth.
Along with delicious, glistening droplets of golden-yellow fat that make the most flavorful and comforting soups and stews.
Bone broth made from slow-simmered bones of responsibly raised, pastured or grass-fed animals and organic vegetables is healing food that should be consumed daily for optimal digestive health.
Slow cooking the bones with a bit of acid (in this case, apple cider vinegar) releases calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, glutamine, proline and glycine into the liquid along with a slew of other amino acids (protein building blocks). One of these amino acids is glutamine, which is particularly important for gut health because the cells lining the gut wall turn over rapidly and glutamine is their preferred fuel. This regular turnover of cells is what helps to repair and rebuild damaged intestinal villi (the finger-like projections where much of digestion takes place). People suffering from “leaky gut syndrome”, celiac disease, colitis or Crohn’s disease often have flattened or damaged villi which leads to malabsorption.
For those with a seemingly healthy gut and no history of digestive disease or disorder, bone broth should still be a regular part of your diet as it has been shown to boost the immune system in several ways. The amino acids glutamine, proline and glycine also support tissue repair and speed the healing of injuries, wounds, burns and have also been shown to decrease recovery time after surgery and major illnesses.
Bone broth improves detoxification.
Bone broth is also important for liver health and natural detoxification. Our bodies are continually detoxifying themselves from the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe (not to mention the products we put on our skin or use to clean our home). This detoxification process is primarily handled by the liver (and to a lesser extent, the kidneys). Glutamine, along with cysteine and proline, is necessary for the production of glutathione which is the major antioxidant that supports the liver in its ability to keep up with our daily toxic burden.
Bone broth is budget-friendly.
Back to those three words: Simple, cheap, nourishing. Normally I bristle at the word “cheap” because I prefer the term “inexpensive” but let’s get real here. Bone broth is cheap and these mineral and collagen-rich bone broths are used in nearly every cuisine around the world to nourish, heal the gut, and stretch the family food budget. This isn’t a new fad, this is old-fashioned kitchen medicine at it’s finest.
Bone broth: Traditional kitchen medicine at it's finest. Click To TweetA few bones and veggie scraps combined with water, heat and time becomes a magical elixir and budget-friendly food with very little work. This broth can then be used in soups and stews, to cook grains or beans or just sipped from a mug when you need something warm and nourishing. You might be surprised to find out that one cup of bone broth can offer up to 10 grams of protein thanks to all those amino acids. For centuries thrifty homemakers have been relying on this kitchen staple to nourish their families in lean times and now you know why.
Save those bones and do your body some good.
Bone broth can be made from just about any leftover bones you have. I roast a whole chicken nearly every week and use the bones for broth for soup to stretch our grocery dollar. I also use beef and lamb bones from local farmers and even add chicken feet to the pot for added collagen when someone in our house is under the weather or my knees are aching from training runs or cold, wet weather. Different bones produce different flavored broths so use what you like best. And don’t forget the garlic and ginger during cold and flu season!
To stretch my dollars even more, I keep a large zip-top bag in my freezer for the bits and ends of vegetables I chop each week – ends of onions and carrots, bits of fresh herbs and wimpy-looking celery and it’s leaves. I don’t use peppers or cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower or kale because these give the broth an off-taste. Those vegetables are better added after cooking when you’re making a soup.
To learn more about all of the great benefits of Bone Broth click here.
- 2 chicken frames, without meat, about 3 pounds of chicken bones (or 1 turkey frame)
- Chicken feet (optional)
- 2 small onions, peeled and cut into quarters
- 2 medium carrots, peeled or scrubbed and cut into large chunks
- 3 stalks celery, washed and cut into large chunks
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
- 1 1-inch knob of ginger, washed and peel left on (optional)
- 1 bay leaf
- 6-10 peppercorns (optional)
- 1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- 4 quarts filtered water, more or less, to fill the slow cooker crock
- Place bones and chicken feet, if using, into a large stock pot.
- Add onions, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaf and peppercorns.
- Fill pot with enough filtered water to cover the bones.
- Add apple cider vinegar (this helps leach minerals and collagen from the bones as it cooks and is a crucial ingredient).
- Bring to a boil and skim the scum that rises to the top with a large spoon.
- Reduce heat to LOW and simmer, covered, for 24 hours adding additional boiling water, if needed, to keep the bones submerged.
- After 24 hours, remove from heat and allow the broth to cool slightly before straining through a fine-mesh strainer.
- Broth may be stored in Mason jars with lids in the fridge for up to 5 days (remove layer of hardened fat before use).
Is there a difference between bone broth and stock?
Hi Diana –
That depends who you ask. From a culinary perspective, “stock” is made from water, vegetables and bones is is used as a starting point for other dishes. Whereas “broth” is made from water, vegetables and meat or meat scraps and aromatics (herbs, garlic, etc.) and is more flavorful and akin to a soup (especially after adding rice, beans, etc.)
However, from a health perspective (popularized by the Gut and Psychology Syndrome {GAPS} Diet, a therapeutic diet designed to heal the GI tract), it’s just the opposite: “stock” or “meat stock” is made with mostly meat and only a few bones and cooked for only a short amount of time. In contrast, a “broth” is cooked using mostly bones and vegetables and is cooked much longer to extract the collagen and amino acids.
Therefore, we use the term “broth” to mean the liquid produced by simmering bones of chicken or beef in water with vegetables for a long period of time (usually over 24 hours).
Can you freeze the broth and still retain the gut benefits?
Hi Anthea,
Great question! Yes, you can freeze the broth with altering any of it’s health benefits.
Can you make another batch after the first? I’m thinking a longer simmer the second time around, or would all the minerals be gone from the first time around?
Hey there!
You could…. but you’d have a much weaker broth and the bones would be pretty depleted.
Weird question… When you use chicken feet, do you put them in whole like they come from the package, or do you chop them up?
Hi Terri,
I add them whole after I’ve given them a good rinse under running water. It’s a little creepy to see the feet in the pot so you can tuck them under the bones and vegetables if you’d like.
Hope that helps!
do the chicken bones need to be unthawed to do this? or can i put them frozen into the pot? let me know thanks!
Hey Nessa,
You can put them into the pot frozen if you cover them with boiling water and start the slow cooker on HIGH (about an hour) so you can get everything hotter faster. This prevents you from having a lukewarm stew of veggies and bones that could potentially grow bacteria (it’s a food safety thing, ya know?)
If you’re using an Instant Pot, go ahead and throw them in frozen but know that it will take longer for the pot to heat and come up to pressure.
Hope that helps!
The recipe says to use 2 chicken frames without the meat, does this mean to use raw (uncooked) chicken bones or bones from a roasted chicken that has been cooked? I know that you mentioned using leftover roasted chicken bones but I just want to make sure. I was taught from my mom to use raw chicken. Can this recipe be done with raw or cooked bones?
Hi Vita,
You can do the recipe both ways. I’ve written it to use the frames of cooked chicken to make use of the leftover bones from other recipes or roast chicken. However, you are correct in that you can use fresh (raw) chicken as well. I often do so when I want the chicken meat for other recipes – I just strip the meat from the frames after a few hours of cooking (time depends on whether it’s cooked in a pot on the stove, pressure cooker or slow cooker) and then toss the bones back into the pot to continue cooking in the broth.
I used this method here in the Instant Pot Whole Chicken recipe and the broth is phenomenal. You can replicate it with the slow cooker by cooking the whole chicken at LOW temp for 5-6 hours (or until breast registers 165 degrees F) then removing the meat from the bones – add your vegetables, vinegar and water and allow to simmer on LOW for 24-36 hours, adding water as needed to keep bones and vegetables covered.
Hope that helps!
Thank you for sharing this. I’d really love to cook my own bone broth but I’m such a failure in the kitchen I don’t want to waste any ingredients. Instead, I’m having Au Bon Broth and I like it so far. It’s really tasty and delicious. I love that it’s the right flavor for me and it helped me improve my health.
You’re so welcome! And it’s great to hear you’ve found a bone broth you really like and that it has helped you to improve your health! The power of real food can’t be beat.
Coming from someone who is a terrific cook & who has been making soup for decades, this bru-ha-ha about bone broth is hilarious!
It’s nothing more than making soup, folks. Whether you use veggies, herbs, meats, tofu, etc. is immaterial. Don’t hype it to be something other than what it is – soup making!
It is especially irritating when people and companies are making money over a practice that goes back to Adam and Eve!
Hey P.W.
Thanks for weighing in. Though I agree that making ‘bone broth’ just boils down to making soup, I have to make a counterpoint here in that without all the ‘bruhaha’ MANY (dare I say, most?) people would not have been introduced to the ages old, time-honored, traditional practice of making broth the RIGHT way.
The food industry lead many to believe that broth in a box was the way to go (the holy grail of convenience). And who can argue with all those millions of ad dollars they have to spend on clever marketing? As a fellow terrific cook with decades of experience with traditional food preparation myself, I see this hype as a blessing. It’s getting the box of crap masquerading as ‘broth’ out of the pantry and spurring millions to put a chicken, vegetables and all the leftover bits into a pot and make real broth and soup.
Ultimately, I see this not only as a win for health but also as a vote against an inferior product that has no health benefits (or flavor, IMHO) – which perhaps is something we can both agree on.
I am so excited to be giving broth/ stock/ soup a go again. It has been many years since my last attempt. I Have fond memories of my Nonna making this and adding fine angel hair pasta when rewarming it to serve as a starter for dinner. I find so much comfort in knowing all the nutrients will be trapped in a lovely clean bowl of warm soup which hopefully my children will love and enjoy as much as I did and still do. I know this will come no where near to comparing to store brough packaged stock. I am going with a stove top method using a 7 Litre pot as I don’t own a pressure cooker and fear my slow cooker is not big enough. It has been boiling for 40 minutes and already the house smells lovely! My gut is doing a happy dance : )
Hi Sam,
I love this! I love how often foods can bring me back in time to special moments in my life. I too remember my grandpa having big pots of chicken soup simmering on the stove and then he’d drop big spoonfuls of dumpling dough in the broth, cover it to cook for a few minutes and when the lid was removed it was magic.
Enjoy your soup and thanks for passing your memories (and your traditional kitchen craft) onto your kids, too! xo