You can read about the benefits and reason why you want to include bone broth in your daily repertoire in my blog “Back To Basics – Bone Broth Demystified”. Here I share with you my favorite winter staple broth.
Immune Boosting Chicken Broth
1 whole pasture raised chicken or 2 to 3 pounds of bony chicken parts, such as necks, backs, breastbones, and wings
Gizzards/offal from one chicken
2-4 organic, pasture raised chicken feet
4 quarts cold filtered water
2 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar
2 – 4 large cloves of garlic, still in their skin
2 large sprigs of fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried
1 bunch of parsley
There are many different ways to make bone broth. Online you will find many versions. Here is my basic way. If you’re starting out with a whole chicken, you’ll of course have plenty of meat as well, which can be added back into the broth later with extra herbs and spices to make a chicken or other kind of soup. I also use it on my salad or with other meals.
- Place the whole chicken or chicken carcass along with the gizzards, offal and feet, into a large stockpot (or large crockpot).
- Fill up with pure, filtered water. (I like to use a crockpot.)
- Add apple cider vinegar and all the other ingredients to the water.
- Bring to a boil. (if using crockpot, set it to 16 hrs)
- Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and let simmer.
- If cooking a whole chicken, the meat should start separating from the bone after about 2 hours. Simply remove the chicken from the pot or crockpot and separate the meat from the bones. Place the carcass back into the pot and continue simmering the bones for another 12-14hours and follow with step 8 and 9.
- If cooking bones only, simply let them simmer for about 16 hours.
- Sally Fallon (Nourishing Traditions) suggests adding the fresh parsley about 10 minutes before finishing the stock, as this will add healthy mineral ions to your broth.
- Remove remaining bones from the broth with a slotted spoon and strain the rest through a strainer to remove any bone fragments.
Store your broth in mason jars in the fridge once it’s strained and cooled or you can freeze it in freezer safe containers.
Ways To Use Broth
- As a base for chicken soup; reheat broth adding sauteed vegetables and onion, chicken meat you removed in step 6.
- As a base for vegetable soup; saute your favorite vegetables and season as you like. Put veggies along with your broth, enough to cover the veggies in a high powered blender, blend, warm and serve.
- As a base for sauces and dips.
- To saute vegetables in.
- As a daily tonic; drink 6-8 oz a day.
The picture for this post is one of my favorite cold morning breakfasts; I heat the broth, drop an egg into it and stir, turn the heat off and let it sit for a moment. Then right when I’m about to eat it I sprinkle micro greens on top with some hot chili oil and mmmmmmm. These are just a few of the ways I like to use my broth. The possibilities are endless, use your imagination. What are yours? Please do leave your comments below!
Live Vibrantly!
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