I often talk about the value of adding bone broth to one’s diet as a nutritious food for its various health benefits and have written about this topic for The Hearty Soul and Coeliac link magazine.
Check out the full article about the health benefits of broth here.
Often there’s no a better way of describing something than with show and tell. This post summarises my experiences with making broth at home aiming to demonstrate how easy it is. Yes, broth can truly be a nutritious fast food.
While there are many lovely companies nowadays selling good quality pre-made both, I highly recommend to anyone looking to get the benefit of broth to just start making it at home.
There is something very romantic about coming home to the warming smell of simmering broth or chicken soup on a winter evening. I also feel that it helps bring us back in touch with traditional cooking and minimising waste. Your local butcher or supermarket throws away kilos and kilos of bones (some meaty, some not so meaty)all which could be used in making a nourishing broth.
I recommend using organic and ethically sources bones where possible. Unhealthy animals make a less healthy broth. We also know that fat and bone tissue can be storage organs for environmental toxins (such as pesticides, BPA, and heavy metals)…but that’s another rant for another day. To the broth!
What you will need:
- A pot: Slowcooker, pressure cooker, or old fashioned soup pot for stove top cooking
- Water: Just enough to cover. filtered, ideally.
- Bones: Choose a range of joint rich cuts (such as knees, chicken feet, chicken frames, pig hooves) and marrow rich cuts (sliced long bones, necks, ribs) – I’ve written about this in the 2017 spring version on Coeliac link magazine.
- A splash of vinegar (they say this help with breaking down the tissues for a richer broth)
- Optional: Herbs, vegetables, lemon/lime, veggies scraps…it’s really up to personal taste from here.
How to:
- Simmer for 8-24 hours
- Seriously, that’s it.
- Just put it on and walk away…
Finished product:
- I’ve found it can be easier to manage if you let the broth cool before emptying from your pot
- Remove the fat layer and keep this in the fridge to use for cooking over the next few weeks.
- Strain through a colander and decant the broth into jars.
- If your broth is still warm, you can allow the fatty layer to firm in your jars and this creates a seal helping to preserve freshness.
Enjoying your broth:
- Reheat on the stove with salt, lime/lemon, and herbs to drink as a tea.
- Use s a meal base in soups, casseroles, or gravies.
- Use as liquid in a smoothie (not the the fain hearted)
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You can see from these pictures how it might be easier to manage the fat once it’s cooled and solidified into one layer. I found the first few times that the oil seems to get on everything when attempting to decent warm broth into storage containers. This way, it’s all in one container. Just break the fat off, pop it in a jar, and it’s then out of the way.
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