Bone Broth for Better Humans

Better human bone broth

There are a ton of bone broth recipes out there, so what makes this a “better human” bone broth?

Well simply because we are writing it. That's all. 

You can read this article or use it as a reference but we also have a full video showing start to finish of the whole process on our YouTube channel, you can watch HERE.

Bone broth is fantastic not only for your health but for flavor when cooking and making soups. You don't even need to make a soup, just drink it straight if you follow this recipe. We sure do. 

I even like to drink a lot of bone broth after traveling or if I have a week or so of not eating too great due to travel. This really helps clean out the gut and sort of reset. 

Benefits

• Great for your gut health and digestions
• Helps immune system and nutrient absorption
• Contains college which can help joins and the body heal
• Can improve sleep
• higher protein and fat to carb ratio
• Iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, etc

Some pro tips to start is to collect your bone anytime you cook meat with bones that way you have them ready. Also keep a ziplock bag in the freezer with vegetable discards like the ends of onions, celery, carrots, etc. 

Unlike most times when you find a recipe online, I'm going to lead with the ingredients and not a story about how I met a sherpa backpacking in Colorado who used to visit a witch doctor in Tanzania that had a grandma with a neighbor that made bone broth. 

Ingredients

Small caveat, the amount of things you will need vary depending on the amount of bones you have. I like to wait until I have about 2-3 whole carcasses to make the process and quantity well worth it. However, now all chickens are treated equally in the size of their bones. The quantity here should fit in a single crockpot but if you have larger equipment, add more of everything.

• 2-3 whole chicken carcasses
• 1 whole onion (skin and all) cut in thirds/ish
• Celery stalk end and innards (4-5 stalks)
• Whole head of garlic, skin and all (chop in half/break up)
• 3-5 carrots (ends skin and all)
• Tablespoon/palm full of peppercorns
• 2-3 bay leafs
• 1 orange, cut in half (skin and all)
• *optional* Herbs- Cilantro, basil, rosemary, your preference. Include stems and all
• Love aka patience

The cooking process for bone broth is pretty simple and is mostly set it and forget it. The main work will come when it's finished and you have to remove everything. 

Cooking

You will need to start by cooking the chicken bones. We always buy whole chickens, cook them, pick the meat and throw the bones in a ziplock bag and in the freezer until we have enough to make broth. This is the best and most efficient way to go. Unless you have a bone hookup, I would suggest doing it this way. But however you get your bones, make sure they have been cooked. 

For bonus flavor even after cooking and right before you make the bone broth, put everything on a sheet pan and throw them in the oven frozen to cook even longer. This will give a deeper, roasted flavor to the broth, but is optional. I don't do this most of the time. 

So you have your bones, then take all of your veggies and such and throw it all in a large pot, probably the largest one you have. Add water until the bones are covered. From there bring the pot to a simmer and simmer for 8 hours with the lid off. Yes, 8 hours.

Check on it every once and a while and you will notice the rim of the pot start to have water level lines. This is what you want, the water to reduce and you add more water to keep the bones covered every couple of hours. This is how you will get a concentration of flavor. 

NOTE- if you put in bones frozen, add less water than you think. There will be some moisture but the bone will stack higher in your than if they were thawed so you may add too much water. So just fill it half way until things summer and the are fully thawed, then add water to cover. 

Congratulations, at this point when 8 hours is over, you have chicken stock. 

“But wait, I thought we were making bone broth?”

Correct. The difference between stock and broth is that bone broth is cooked longer, typically 24 hours. Stock is just the concentration you have after 8 hours. 

So from here, transfer everything in your pot to a slow cooker, Set the slow cooker on low and let it cook in there with the lid on for 16 hours. 

Typically this happens in the evenings and it's left to cook overnight. 

NOW after that 16 hours, you have your bone broth! Well mostly. 

Process

These last steps are what may take some time and feel tedious to some but its not as bad as it seems. 

For this I like to use two large bowls for transferring all of the liquid. You will also need a colander and preferably a wire/mesh strainer. 

Remove all of the large pieces with the colander. I typically fill it up by scooping out the large bits, and then eventually pouring it all in. 

Then you have liquid with lots of small, kind of fibrous pieces in it. If you are feeling lazy, or don't mind all that stuff then you can just leave it. Honestly if you are making a soup you may as well just leave it because its not a big deal and you won't even notice it. 

But if you want pure bone broth to freeze, drink or just to have then you will want to sift all of that fibrous liquid through a mesh/wire strainer to remove them all. You will have to regularly empty the strainer as it fills up, this process can get a little slow but when you're done, you're done!

From here just put in whatever containers you want to store or freeze these in and BOOM. I highly recommend taking a mug full of your finished product and drinking it. You will thank me and it will make the process all worth it.