Bone Broth Basics

Bone Broth is a big part of my cooking regimen. Over the years, I have made it many different ways- Crock Pot, Instapot, on the stove. All of these are good ways to do it…. the key is to just do it. The method of cooking changes little more than the cooking time. I drink bone broth on many days and use it as a means of mitigating longer fasting periods. When I do this, I like to squeeze an entire lemon into the broth and toss the lemon in to steep as well.

Frequent Questions:

What type of bones? It doesn’t really matter. I’ve used pig, buffalo, beef, chicken, and deer with success. The flavors do change a bit and you may find that chicken is most palatable initially. This is a good place to buy the BEST BONES YOU CAN AFFORD.

What if I can’t find bones? I don’t always actually buy “bones”, per se. More often, I keep a gallon bag in my freezer and save the bones from when I cook meats. When I collect enough chicken thigh bones (or whatever) I make the broth. I also keep another gallon bag for the tops an edges of veggies like carrots, onions, and zucchini. These add good flavor.

How long do I cook it? In the Instapot, 4 hours. In the Crock Pot, go for 12-24 hours On the stove, 12-18 with a lid on.

Making of the Bone Broth

This is really so easy. Put the bones (and veggie pieces and maybe some cloves of garlic) into the pot. Pour in a Tablespoon of Apple Cider vinegar. Cover with water. Cook for prescribed time (see above). You can add sea salt if you like, but I’d keep that limited just so the broth is super neutral. After cooking, run the broth through a wire mesh strainer to remove residue. Then, either refrigerate the whole batch and remove the solidified fat or do that in the next step on each individual storage.

In this pic, I used the last little sad carrots from my garden. There wasn’t enough to put in anything, so they got to be part of the bone broth :-)

Storing the Bone Broth

When I make bone broth, I divide it into a silicone muffin pan, place it on a cutting board, and freeze it. I pop out the frozen broth muffins and keep them in a ziploc bag. This makes it easy to add a little to recipes or defrost one to drink.

Using the Bone Broth

To use the bone broth, simply pull out however many liffle broth muffins you need and defrost them. When I drink broth, I use one and add about 1/4 c of water to it. For cooking, I defrost one and add an equal amount of water to it. If I toss one in veggies (like Brussel sprouts), I do not add any additional water. You really can’t mess it up. Just toss bone broth into any soup, grain, skillet meal, or sauteed b=vegetable for a little healthy bonus!