On occasion, my daughter likes to remind me why I originally created this blog. It wasn’t to experiment with new recipes and to try out various dietary experiments on myself, and family. It was to have a one stop shop for my kids to remember, and maybe one day use, some of their favorite recipes and shared meals from their childhood.
With that in mind, I was recently scolded for not yet including any recipes for a homemade chicken bone broth. It’s a huge hit in our house, probably for a variety of reasons. My daughter loves to drink chicken broth straight, just like a cup of tea, with dinner or maybe even an after school snack.
My son, on the other hand, doesn’t really drink the broth straight, but for him, anytime he finds me making a batch of homemade organic bone broth, he thinks he’s that much closer to a batch of chili, or some soup.
I have been hesitant to include this recipe, not because it isn’t super healthy or delicious (it’s both), but because there simply isn’t much to it. I throw a few items in a pot, sit around for a lazy day, and that’s about it!
It is fairly universally understood that homemade bone broth is downright awesome for you. Almost anyone who writes about food will have an article published somewhere describing the multitude of health benefits of consuming bone broth on a daily basis, or at least as often as possible.
Don’t believe me? Here’s an article from the Weston A Price website: Broth Is Beautiful. Here’s another from Underground Wellness: Bone Broth Is The Bomb. And another and another… Need one more? Here’s an article from Dr. Axe: Bone Broth benefits for digestion, arthritis and cellulite.
Just a few of the claimed benefits of regular consumption of chicken stock is improved digestion, reduction of joint pain, healthy bones, built up tolerance to colds and flu and healthy hair and nails. Sounds pretty good to me. Did I mention it’s pretty easy, especially if you have to be home all day anyway?
To ensure that I could maximize all of the health benefits of my stock, I also wanted to make sure that I used high quality products. I’ve used mass produced chickens before, years ago before I knew better, and had trouble producing a stock with enough collagen to turn to jelly once it cooled down. But once I switched over to using organic pasture chickens, no problems, the next morning, my cooled stock is totally jelly-fied!
That jelly stuff, that’s the good stuff that does so many wonderful things inside your body. The old ad campaign should really be “Bone Broth, It Does A Body Good!”
Ok, so the chickens that I use nowadays for my stock are organic and live like chickens should, on grass, eating bugs and grubs and whatever else chickens like to eat. What about the rest of the ingredients? Organic as well, but there really aren’t very many other ingredients. A few old vegetables that I can find lying around the house, a few carrots, some celery and an onion. If I’m feeling really industrious, I might add some peppercorns and garlic.
Another route you can pursue, which I have pictured above, is using chicken parts from the grocery when you want to make chicken stock or bone broth, but don’t happen to have a few carcasses laying around just for this purpose. This happens more often than not at my house because we simply don’t eat chicken enough to keep up with our demand for homemade chicken bone broth.
Either way, whether I’m using bones leftover from previous dinners, or chicken parts I’ve picked up from the grocery or farmers market, I like to use about 3-4 lbs of chicken parts for my stock. Then, when I throw in my chopped vegetables and fill my pot with water, and let it cook down over 8-10 hours, I end up with a fairly brown and rich broth.
Homemade Chicken Bone Broth
Ingredients
- carcass and leftovers from two whole roasted chickens if I don't have left over chicken bones on hand I use about 3 lbs of store bought legs and wings
- 4 carrots
- 1 bunch of celery
- 1 onion
- a few peppercorns
- 3-4 garlic cloves
Instructions
- Place all the ingredients in a medium or large stockpot
- Add 4 quarts of cold water for each chicken carcass you are using (8 quarts for this recipe)
- Over medium heat, bring water just to a boil, then reduce to medium low and keep stock slightly bubbling, but not boiling
- After 8-12 hours, or when the stock has turned a golden brown, pour all the contents of the stock pot through a fine strainer to remove the bones and vegetables
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