Good Morning and Happy Fitmom Food Friday all ya’ll beautiful people! In honor of cold and flu season today I’m going to teach you how to make super nutritious bone broth with stuff you usually throw away.
Homemade bone broth is so much better than anything you buy in the store. Here’s the deal with bone broth, if it doesn’t jiggle like jello, it’s not real and doesn’t have all the nutrients you would get from making it yourself. Homemade bone broth has gelatin and collagen, amino acids: glycine, glutamine, arginine, and proline. It also contains easily absorbable minerals: calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulfur, chondroitin sulfates, and glucosamine to name a few.
TIP: If you’re a bodybuilder, cook your post-workout rice with it for a boost of a bunch of stuff that’s probably in your protein powder!!!
Here is my standard recipe for chicken bone broth as well as a slightly tweaked version for using a holiday roast since the holiday season is upon us. (BUT!!! It doesn’t have to be chicken, I’ve made beef and pork stock as well!)
HOW TO MAKE SUPER NUTRITIOUS CHICKEN BONE BROTH WITH STUFF YOU USUALLY THROW AWAY
Step One: Gather
Every time you cut up onions, celery, carrots, and garlic scrub the outside clean, roots, peel, everything. Put everything that you are not going to cook (root ends, papery peel, carrot peel, celery leaves, bottoms, etc.) into a large freezer bag and throw it in the freezer. When you have ¾ to a full bag, you are ready for the next step.
Step Two: Cook a chicken in a slow cooker
Get a whole organic chicken.
Make a seasoning rub – good basic chicken seasoning: 1 part powdered chicken bouillon or consume and 1 part other stuff.
Season chicken between the meat and skin (gently separate skin from meat but it doesn’t matter if you tear it, you’re not eating it and not going to enter a cooking contest). Season inside the cavity, and outside of the bird.
Place BREAST side down in slow cooker, put on the lid, set on high, wait 2-4 hours (timing depends on the slow cooker), and Viola!
Step 3: Make the bone broth
Remove skin from the cooked chicken, feed to your dogs if applicable. Then get all the meat you want to eat off, throw the bones and whatever else is left back in the slow cooker. Get the bag of stuff out of the freezer and add it in then just cover everything with water. Make sure to leave a little head space so it doesn’t make a big mess. Put the lid on, set to low, and let it cook for the next 24-72 hours.
I highly recommend cooking it closer to the 72-hour mark versus the 24 because the long simmer will increase flavor and the release more all nutrients from the bones and ligaments. Give a stir a couple of times a day but for the most part just let it go. When you decide it’s ready, strain all the solids out of the broth. If you prefer a clearer broth, also run it through cheesecloth (a very messy step). Make a big pot of soup or something out of it immediately, or let cool and separate into freezer bags in the amount you typically need for a recipe (I make 2-cup bags) and freeze until needed.
TIP: If the flavor isn’t quite strong enough for you, wait until you are going to cook something with it to add more you don’t want to overdo it (sometimes a pinch of salt will bring all the flavors out but only a pinch or two).
Post-Holiday or new to the process directions – Pretty much the same
Step one: Follow step one above as you’re prepping your holiday meal but no need to freeze just keep the scraps.
Step Two: Roast your bird or whatever you’re doing that has bones in the oven. (I’ve made this with pork chops and ham hocks as well, really anything with bones will work the same). When the festivities are over, throw the carcass in a slow cooker. Add the scraps, and you’ll need to add 1-2 fresh onions, celery stalks, a carrot, and several garlic cloves. As long as they’re washed well, you don’t need to cut them up unless you want or need to make them fit. Cover, set to low, cook 24 to 72 hours, strain, separate, freeze.
The flavor will be a little blander with this process because you’re losing all the juices from cooking. Just be prepared to need to add more if necessary.
There is a long list of things that bone broth can help with if used often. If you’re interested, check out: 8 Reasons Try Bone Broth from Shape.com and The Healing Power of Bone Broth for Digestion Arthritis and Cellulite by Dr. Axe
Hey there Fitfood Friends!
Sooooo…
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That’s it for this post!
Have a great day all ya’ll!
~emmy
