bone broth

the superfood that costs (almost) nothing to make

Ever made bone broth? What about perpetual bone broth? Before you toss out another ham bone, beef bone, or chicken/turkey carcass, consider this — it’s so easy, free, and healthy for you. Here are some of the benefits, and here’s how we do it:

To make bone broth, you need…

• a crock pot

• jars or containers for storing

• a strainer or sieve

• a large pitcher that the sieve fits in is helpful

• bones (know your source so you’re getting the good stuff, and not Franken-food)

The bones go in the crock pot. You can add veggie scraps too, like onion skins, bits of celery or carrot, etc. Fill it with water, set to low, and let simmer overnight.

The next day, strain the liquid into jars and refill the crock pot. Leave these jars on the counter for few hours until they’re cool enough to put in the fridge.

This first batch will have the strongest flavor and also the most fat — and the first jar you fill will have the most-most fat. 😁 See below.

The first jar I filled is on the right — see the half-inch or so of fat at the top?

If you want to drink from the first batch (because it tastes amazing!), pour out at least one jar first (to get the fat out of the way) before filling your mug.

But don’t waste the fat! After refrigerating, once the broth is cold you can lift off the hardened fat, store it in a separate container in the fridge, and use it in place of oil for savory baking or cooking — it will have the flavor of the broth, so if you’re making turkey broth, it will taste like turkey. Which works well for biscuits or sauteing veggies, but maybe not so much in pancakes and waffles.

Repeat this process every 24 hours for the first few days. After that, add 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to help the bones break down and draw out minerals (it won’t affect the flavor, which is much more mild by now). Then repeat the process every 48 hours until you run out of fridge or freezer space, or the carcass dissolves to nothing, or you are sick of the process.

This is how you get perpetual bone broth…because you just could go forever and ever, adding more bones as you cook and as the old bones break down…but eventually our family gets tired of the crock pot taking up the counter, so we go through this process two or three times a year.

The clearer, later broth is still good for you even though it doesn’t taste like the earlier, more flavorful broth. The first batches have more gelatin/collagen, and the later batches have more minerals.

How do you store it, though?

We keep a few jars at a time in the fridge, and the rest we store in plastic containers in the freezer, leaving 1-2 inches of head space for expansion. Yes, they fill the freezer quickly…so in the winter, because we live in Alaska, we keep an extra cooler on the deck just for bone broth.

A good goal is to use it fast enough that you don’t run out of space to store it. If you’re doing that, your body will thank you.

To thaw and use…

You can a) leave it on the counter or in the sink a few hours before you need it, which requires some foresight and preparation…(ahem)…

…so I normally b) set the container in a pot with a couple inches of warm water, or run hot water from the faucet over the bottom of the container until it thaws enough to pop into the saucepan to heat.

And what do you DO with all that bone broth?!

Other than drinking it straight (add a pinch of salt, unless you’re using bones from a brined turkey…ask me how I know), you can use bone broth in…

• soups

• sauces

• gravies

• casseroles

• risotto

We also use it in place of water when we make rice or other savory baked goods that call for water as an ingredient.

Broth also makes a great milk substitute in those same baked goods for those who need to avoid or minimize dairy intake. My daughter has even been known to make hot cocoa out of bone broth (just replace the milk with a combination of bone broth and coconut milk).

Happy homesteading,

Shannon