Bone broth is a staple of my family’s diet. As with healthy fats, heirloom vegetables, grass-fed meats and a good old-fashioned fermented cod liver oil, we consume a lot of bone broths – usually aiming for one quart per person per day, at the recommendation of our nutritionist. Broth, you see, is a nutritional powerhouse. It is extraordinarily rich in easy-to-assimilate minerals, amino acids and goodies like glucosamine chondroitin. Its gelatin helps to heal the gut, which is why it plays such an integral role in the GAPS diet, and it provides powerful medicine – particularly in combating colds and flus.
And, you did read that right: we do aim for one quart per adult per day (the little one of the household gets at least a pint). That’s a lot of broth. Let me do the math for you. That’s between two and three quarts per day, averaging to about four and a half gallons of broth each week for our family. Yes, as you might imagine, soups and stews are a big part of our day, more so in the winter than in the summer. When I serve breakfast, I serve it with a mug of broth and another mug of broth sits at my desk as I work.
It’s a beautiful thing, really, and I credit good broth, fermented cod liver oil and of fermented foods with the resilient immunity my family enjoys each flu season. We also use these unconventional techniques to fight the flu and build immunity.
So how do we make enough broth?
So if you’re wondering just how I manage working at home full time, homeschooling our 6-year old with making four and a half gallons of bone broth each week, I’ll tell you. I slow cook it. I call it perpetual soup. You see, my six-quart slowcooker (kinda like this one) is my cauldron. That is, it is always on – bubbling away and ready to nourish my family with the bounty of the bones that stew away every hours of every day.
Once a week, I place the frame of a roast chicken into the slow cooker, cover it with filtered water (We use a Berkey to filter our water, and you can find them online.), toss in a few bay leaves, black peppercorns and vegetable scraps, turn it on and call it good. As I pull broth from the slow cooker, I filter it through a reusable coffee filter which helps to strain out any floating herbs, chicken skin or pieces of bone and results in a beautiful clear broth. As I remove broth, I add water and continue the process throughout the week – ensuring that by the end of the week every bit of goodness has been pulled from that chicken frame.
And, in case you’re worried about the cost of keeping your slow cooker on twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week, the estimated cost of running your slow cooker is about $0.01 to $0.03 per hour – for a total cost of $1.68 to $5.04 for the week. Undoubtedly worth it. Learn more about energy-wise cooking here.
Perpetual Soup or Bone Broth the Easy Way
chicken bones, sweet bay, peppercorns, vegetable scraps
ingredients
- 1 whole chicken or the frame of a roasted chicken
- 2 sweet bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- any vegetable scraps you have on hand (see note for recommended vegetables)
- filtered water (see sources for a good filter)
equipment:
- 6-quart slow cooker (like this one)
- fine-mesh sieve or reusable coffee filter (like this one)
method:
- Place one whole chicken or the frame of a roasted chicken into your slow cooker with sweet bay, black peppercorns and any vegetable scraps you have on hand. Cover with filtered water and cook on low for one week.
- After twenty-four hours, you may begin using the broth. As you need broth or stock, simply dip a ladle or measuring cup into the slow cooker to remove the amount of stock you need. Pour it through a fine-mesh sieve or, preferably, a reusable coffee filter which will help to clarify the broth. Replace the broth you remove from the slow cooker with an equivalent amount of filtered water (see sources for a good filter). If you’re using a whole, fresh chicken, you may also remove chicken meat from the slow cooker as desired for stir-fries, in soups or in recipes like Asian-style lettuce wraps.
- At the end of the week, strain off any remaining broth and discard or compost the bones. The bones from your chicken should crumble when pressed between your thumb and forefinger. Their softness is an indication that much of the nourishment from the bones – minerals, amino acids – have leached from the bones and into the broth you’ve enjoyed all week long. Wash the insert of your slow cooker and start again.
YIELD: As much or as little broth as you want, my family consumes about 2 to 3 quarts of broth each day. | TIME: Perpetual.
NOTE: Vegetable scraps are not necessary for perpetual soup; however, if you’d like to use them, take care to use the ones recommended as prolonged cooking with certain vegetables may yield a bad flavor to your broth. I recommend using parsley and parsley trimmings, onion, garlic, celery and celery leaves. Do not use carrot scraps (it makes the broth too sweet) or beets, broccoli, turnips or any other brassicas which introduce a bitter aftertaste to your broth.
Lovage Soup for Spring
Moroccan Preserved Lemons
campfire roast chicken with flowering onion and dill
Our Daily Bread: No-knead Sourdough
A Story of Recovery (and a Recipe for Grain-free Carrot Cupcakes with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting)
A Recipe for Beet Kvass: A Deeply Cleansing Tonic
What about apple cider vinegar? I was under the impression that ACV is needed to pull minerals from the bones. Is it not necessary because you cook it so long?
I use ACV for the reason you mentioned and I cook the broth it for 2 days.
You mention using a whole chicken which is what I am doing right now. My question is, how long does it have to cook in the crockpot before the meat is done and I can take it off the bones?
I guess you haven’t had time to respond but I figured it out. It took about 5 hours; I cooled it and pulled off the chicken meat. After the bones had cooked for 2 days and were sufficiently soft, I cooled the broth and put the whole thing in my VitaMix to liquify the bones. Now my broth includes all the marrow, too, as well as every piece of bone. It is so delicious!
I’ve been making bone broth in my stock pot on the stove top for a couple years. The first few batches I brewed for a couple days, then squeezed the bones to reveal quite a bit of stuff that looked like it was too worthy to be thrown out, so I pinched open all the pieces that would “give” and kept on simmering. I have a Vita-Mix and after the long simmering process, I process it ALL in that, about 6 Cups at at time. I freeze it and use it as soup base later on (but never much later!). It warms the apartment nicely in winter; I don’t do it much in Texas summers. Even the VitaMix leaves some chewy “sand” in the bottom (it’s more annoying when a tiny grain of bone gets stuck in my throat), and that sometimes gets tossed. It adds SO MUCH taste to plain soups (split pea, lentil, etc. all those things GAPS restricts!).
I use beef bones, too, but they don’t boil down to grit as quickly as chicken, so I pinch open the bones that will “give” and then put the more resilient ones back in the freezer for next time, once I collect enough bones for another batch.
We started pasturing 2 cattle for beef and was wondering if the beef bones would work for perceptual soup too?
I use beef bones, too, but they don’t boil down to grit as quickly as chicken, so I pinch open the bones that will “give” and then put the more resilient ones back in the freezer for next time, once I collect enough bones for another batch. The size of cow bones keeps the goodies inside very well protected and they sound awful / unsafe in a VitaMix.
If you cook the chicken in the soup for a week, it seems that the fat would be kept at an elevated temperature (even though it’s a crockpot) for a long period. Doesn’t this render it unhealthful?
I have tried this the last couple of weeks. I was wondering why it started to smell bad after the first couple of days? I had an onion in. Is prolonged cooking ok with the fat left in? also have added egg shells for more mineral content. Is that appropriate for ‘perpetual’ stock. I gave up on the last batch and started over because I figured if it doesn’t smell good, might not be good for us.
We have a large family (9 of us), so my recipes take a lot off. Would rebuilding so often reduce the quality? I’m assuming I would start fresh every 4 days or so, though we are no to the extent of the whole lot of us just drinking it, so sometimes it sits and other days I use a lot. Thanks for your response!
How much are you taking out every day? That’s going to affect the flavor.
Some days only a cup or two. Others I will use maybe 2/3 then refill, if I’m using it for soup. It is a 6 quart.
That’s the problem. If you’re only taking a cup or two, the stock will taste burnt. If you’re using half, the stock will become watery.
I must be a real cooking ignoramus? What is a chicken frame? Does it just mean everything but the mean, like skeleton and skin? And if the fat is hot for that long, doesn’t it get rancid?
I really want to try this recipe. Do I need to worry about having the crockpot on that long, though..like a fire?
Please include broths and other recipes that come out as nutritious. by cooking them in an electric pressure cooker.
I don’t recommend using pressure cookers.
It hasn’t been an issue in our home.
Is the reply function working?