What if there was something you could make that is not only delicious, but frugal and nourished your entire body? So many times we are searching for ways to add flavor to our dishes and come up empty or end up buying boxed broth which typically has a nice dose of MSG added and not nearly the amount of health benefits that bone broth contains.

Bone Broth: Why and Where to Find Good Bones:

In my home, bone broth is a choice I choose over and over. You can read about its benefits in the book “Nourishing Broth: An Old-Fashioned Remedy for a Modern World (here),”  by Sally Fallon Morell and Kaayla T. Daniel, Ph.D. I also like that it reduces animal waste. When an animal dies for our nourishment, why waste any of it? It’s all filled with nutrition, even more so when the animal was raised on pasture instead of a feed lot. You can locate a farmer through eatwild.com. I’ve also seen pasture-based farmers through Craigslist and Google searches. For my family, I choose farmers that keep the animals on grass and hay and if they are supplementally fed (which should only be the last few weeks of life), their feed is non-GMO. Animals that get plenty of natural sunshine also have more vitamin D stored in their fat. These kinds of animals keep our blood lipid profile in check. This in turn reduces a state of inflammation.

 

What To Do With Bone Broth:

Bone broth is the foundation for an amazing french onion soup, shepherd’s pie, chili, nourishing gravies and numerous other soups and stews. I also really love how well we sleep when we consume it regularly. It makes my world go ’round, obviously (check out the name of the blog). If there’s a recipe that calls for boxed or canned broth, simply use your own bone broth and add salt to taste at the end of the recipe.

Let’s Make Some Beef Bone Broth!!! 

This isn’t a recipe, but a method. I will include the way to make it with either a slow cooker, on the stovetop or in a pressure cooker. It starts out the same for any of these methods. The method in this post will be for light bone broth. The second post in this series will cover dark bone broth. You can find that post here. 

Place beef bones of any variety on a cookie sheet or in a roasting dish. Roast at 400F for 45 minutes. The roasting improves the finished flavor in the broth. 

Place bones in a stockpot, slow cooker or pressure cooker. Cover the bones with cold or room temp filtered (here) water. Also add 1T of apple cider vinegar ( I buy it in a glass bottle only) to the water to pull out the minerals into the broth. Your broth WILL NOT taste like vinegar. Just cover the bones. Typically one lb of bones needs 1 qt of water. My bones here were about 5 lb. Typically they look darker after roasting, but I refrigerated mine after roasting because my kids were distracting me and started again the next day. 

For a stockpot: Bring everything to a boil (remove any bubbly scum that rises) and then lower the temperature to low, so it barely has a bubble at the surface. Cover and cook for 24 -48 hours. Keep an eye on the water level.

For a slow cooker: Place the bones/water/vinegar in, cover and cook on low for 24-48 hours. Keep an eye on your water level.

For a pressure cooker like the Instant Pot (here): Place the bones and water in (you can skip the vinegar in a pressure cooker) and set on the Saute/Medium setting till it comes to a boil. Scoop off and discard any scum, then turn off and set to the manual setting, close the vent and cook for 120 minutes.

 

After the bone broth is ready, use a large measuring cup or huge ladle to pour the broth through a stainless steel mesh strainer or through some old fabric to strain out any debris from the bones. Let it cool, then store in the fridge. After it refrigerates you may have a layer of fat rise to the top. You can keep it and allow it to melt back when reheating or scoop it off to add to vegetables for roasting. Excuse the pink doll blanket in this pic.

 

And that’s it! Nourishing bone broth is easy and delicious. Stay tuned for Part II on how to get a dark beef bone broth and general Q&A regarding problems some people experience with their bone broth.