Nourishing Bone Broth
This is part 5 in the year-long series on Traditional Foods. January focused on sweeteners, and February focuses on homemade, old-fashioned, nutrient-dense bone broth. And, my apologies for posting this section of the Traditional Foods Primer a touch late,
There is nothing like a homemade broth – rich, fragrant and glistening with droplets of golden fat. It’s an essential aspect of good cooking. Homemade bone broth offers the depth of flavor that its storebought counterpart simply can’t parallel. It’s also an extraordinarily inexpensive food, especially for its nutritive value. Beyond its culinary uses and economic benefits, bone broth is remarkably healthful.
Culinary Uses
Broths made from bones have been used across the globe throughout human history. Nearly every traditional society boiled bones of meat-giving animals to make a nutritive broth. It is deeply flavorful, but versatile and can provide the base for soups, sauces, gravies as well as providing a cooking medium for grains and vegetables.
In our home, we inevitably have a crockpot of perpetually brewing poultry stock bubbling away on the counter. And we use it everyday. When I braise vegetables, I use bone broth. Or we use it to baste roasting meats. Or, of course, in the soups, sauces and gravies we eat throughout the week.
While bone broth is technically a stock, and not a broth the terms are often used interchangeably.
Frugal Benefits
Bone broths are remarkably inexpensive to make. Many times you can prepare a decent broth for the cost of energy used to heat your pot alone. By using the bones from leftover roast chickens matched with vegetable scraps you’ve saved, you can make a gallon of stock for pennies. In getting to know your butcher or local rancher, you can often acquire beef or lamb bones for free.
Preparing your own stock at home can possibly save you more money over time than any other kitchen endeavor. Consider that a one-quart package of Pacific Organic Broth will set you back at least $4.75 at most grocers, but making your own bone broth from kitchen scraps will cost you only the pennies needed for energy use. And it tastes better.
Health Benefits
As I mentioned earlier, bone broth has been prepared in kitchens, hearths and firesides throughout history. And, in many ways, it’s a lost art. Home cooks have simply forgotten how easily a broth is made and how worthwhile it is to make this low-cost, highly nutritive food a regular part of the family diet.
As the bones cook in water – especially if that water has been made slightly acidic by the inclusion of cider vinegar – minerals and other nutrients leach from the bones into the water. Homemade broth is rich in calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and other trace minerals. The minerals in broth are easily absorbed by the body. Bone broth even contains glucosamine and chondroiton – which are thought to help mitigate the deletorious effects of arthritis and joint pain. Rather than shelling out big bucks for glucosamine-chondroitin and mineral supplements, just make bone broth and other nutritive foods a part of your regular diet.
Further, homemade bone broths are often rich in gelatin. Gelatin is an inexpensive source of supplementary protein. Gelatin also shows promise in the fight against degenerative joint disease. It helps to support the connective tissue in your body and also helps the fingernails and hair to grow well and strong.
Why Not Boxed/Tinned Broth
Boxed and canned broths and stocks are commercially available, and you can even purchase organic and free-range meat broths; however, these watery stocks pale by comparison to both the nutrient density and flavor of homemade bone broths. These commercially prepared broths are often asceptically packaged and highly processed. And expensive!
Save yourself money and maximize the flavor and nutrient density of your foods by incorporating broth into your diet more regularly. Want to know more? Check back next week and I’ll teach you how to make bone broth from leftover roast chicken.
What about gelatin for digestive health?
Hmm, inexpensive? Sadly not for me and most people I know who make bone broth (we pay $2-3 per pound). Where do you live where butchers and ranchers are so kind to give them away for nothing?:)
She said YOUR leftover bones, stupid. If you roast a chicken, make a brown stock with the bones. Get it? Actually a broth is usually made with meat AND bones, stocks are bones. ratios: broth, 10lbs meat/bones, 5qts water, 1lb mirepoix, 1ea sachet d’epice or bouqet garni. Stock, 8lbs bones, 5-6qts water, 1lb mirepoix, 1ea sachet or bouqet. Simple.
Jenny,
Did you post your recipes for bone broth? I can not seen to locate them using the search on the web site.
Thanks
Mike Spivey
Las Vegas
Thank you for posting this wonderful article! Growing up, I remember there always seemed to be a constant pot of soup on the stove made from leftovers. Just this past week, I started making broth from leftover rotisserie chickens, and the broth is just so delicious. What’s even better is that I’ve been having broth for the past week because the carcasses made so much broth….and i didn’t have to spend an extra penny. Found this article when I wanted to learn more about the health benefits of eating bone broth, figuring there would be many considering how many minerals were in bone
It looks like this broth is even better for me than I had hoped! Awesome.
I just read your post on bone broths and really enjoyed it. I just made some soup using homemade beef broth that I made yesterday and was searching around to see who else is making broth and if they are making it the same way I am:) It’s nice that you can get bones free at the farmers market. I have to pay for them at our farmers market, but they give a really nice gelled broth so it’s worth it. Great post!
I remember getting not only free bones, but also beef hearts, tongue and liver from a local butcher many years ago. Alas, those days are long gone!