Bone Broth!

You have probably heard of bone broth by now– slow cooking beef or chicken bones with other herbs and Vegetables for long periods of time to leech out all the good nutrition inside. They actually sell bone broth at grocery store markets now, for around $7-10 for less than a quart size jar! But did you know you can make your own amazingly immune-boosting bone broth yourself for less than $5 for a huge batch?

Roast the bones at 350 F for half an hour with some salt and pepper first, helps give a nice flavor

The best bones to use are going to come from a local small farm, so buy those if you can find some. If you can’t, most grocery stores do sell bones with very little meat or just some marrow visible. These are good to use as well.

The vegetables may take a little more preparation, but you can start now. The way I do it is that any time I cook dinner, I save the little bits and scraps of onion ends, garlic nubs, potato peel, celery ends, etc and put them all in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. I add to the bag every time I cook and eventually, there ends up being enough to just throw in the pot. If I roast a chicken and have picked off all the meat I can get, I throw that into the big crock pot with my bag of veggies scraps and some salt and pepper and just cook it on low for a day or so. If you haven’t been saving your veggies scraps, though, you can just rough chop a carrot, some celery (break in half,) cut an onion in quarters, throw in those nasty little pieces of garlic that are hell to peel (don’t bother peeling anything) and some salt and pepper. I also like to add a little seaweed and some mushrooms if I can, as well as whatever herbs or green things I can forage out in the yard. Calendula is an EXCELLENT herb to add to bone broth, as it helps enhance the gut healing properties of the batch.

Here’s one I made with chicken feet! They have lots of extra collagen

Throw everything in the crock pot, cover with water almost to the top, and DON’T FORGET to add 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar; this helps leech the minerals from the bones. Cook on low 24 hours or more. The end result may need some extra salt (it tends to cook off), but you can either drink it in a mug, freeze it in batches, use it as a base for soups, cook your rice and pasta in it, or whatever. Great for when you are sick! Bone broth is extremely helpful in healing the gut lining and is my first go-to remedy for gut ailments.

Do you make bone broth?