If you missed Monday’s post on making the easiest crockpot chicken, check this out!
If you are wanting to “start somewhere” with your real food journey I would say besides getting the processed food out, this is one of the best.
So simple. So nourishing. It is like medicine.
For practically free.
No really. It is. I’m probably not doing it justice. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a fancy writer.
But I’m a Mama. With a husband and 2 wee ones exposed to everything under the sun as we go about our daily lives.
And I can tell you stuff works. It is like putting liquid healing in your body. It is nourishing healing for messed up guts to heal food allergies. It’s minerals that you cannot get from our depleted soils and processed vitamin supplements. Seriously I’m not doing it justice. You have got to take it from the experts – read this article from Weston Price and this post from Nourished Kitchen about the benefits of bone broth.
Maybe I’m just naive? Maybe I’m just willing to try something new.
When I read “Broth is Beautiful” 3 years ago, I decided to try it.
Seriously – read at least one of those articles before you jump in – you will feel like Mama of the Year while you are preparing your stock!
Here’s what you’ll need:
Bones, carcass, juices from 1-2 roasted or crockpotted chickens
Veggie scraps from your roasted or crockpotted chicken, or veggie scraps from your weekly meals in general. (Carrot, onion, celery are the typical veggies used)
1-2 bay leaves (optional – I don’t always use this)
4-5 peppercorns (optional – I don’t always use this)
Filtered cold water
3 TB of apple cider vinegar (I use Bragg’s
- Fill your crockpot with all ingredients including the COLD water to cover the bones.
- Let everything sit for 30-60 minutes WITHOUT THE HEAT ON – the vinegar will pull out all the minerals and good stuff from the bones.
- Turn the crockpot on low for 24-48 hours.
- Strain out your stock.
- Store in the fridge up to a week or in the freezer for 6 months.
Kitchen Tips:
- My typical process is to throw the bones/juices/veggies into the crockpot as I’m taking apart the chicken after cooking it. It really doesn’t add any time to your day – you are taking the chicken apart anyway – just throw the bones into the crockpot and add water and vinegar. I get about 3 quarts of stock out of my weekly chicken and that seems to hold us most of the time – in the winter I tend to go through more as I am cooking more soup or we are drinking more to stay healthy.
- You can get a couple of “rounds” of stock out of one set of bones – stock your freezer up!
- If you are going to freeze the stock, only fill the jar ¾ of the way and put it in the freezer WITHOUT the lid on. This will give the stock room to expand upon freezing without breaking your jar…not that I have ever done such a thing… 🙂
- Use your stock in everything! Obviously use it in bases of soups and stews. But I regularly use it instead of water when making quinoa or rice, or instead of water in any dinner casserole or crockpot recipe. When you are in the baby food making season of life, use it in your baby food purees as the liquid. It feels SO good to put that in your little ones!
- DON’T leave the vinegar out! It helps pull all the minerals from the bones!
- Drink your stock! Especially when you feel “run down”…it will jump start you better than any cup of coffee would…yep that was me saying that. Crazy I know. I started my oldest drinking chicken stock from her sippy by 1 year old. When Claire got her first cold around 9 months old I started her drinking it in a sippy and she did great! Cold gone in 48 hours flat!
- DON’T re-heat your stock in the microwave. It will kill all the good stuff! Heat it up on the stove or a hot pot.
YOUR TURN!
Let me know what you think if you try it for the first time! What are some of your secrets to keeping your family healthy? PLEASE, please use the comments section of this post to ask some stock questions! This is such an important one to me and I love talking about it! I want to help make this one work for you! I have done it in every season of life!
I’ll be back tomorrow talking about how to start healthy eating habits in your kids by getting them in the kitchen with you! I went through what seems like a zillion pictures I have of the girls helping me in the kitchen to give all of you some inspiration! Come on back tomorrow to see!
This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday, Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday, The Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter, and Too Many Jars In My Kitchen’s Fill Those Jars Friday!
Hey Renee…I stumbled across this website to find a veggie wash recipe “real quick” and now can’t stop looking at everything! I love all of your simple and clean recipes…can’t wait to try them.
I noticed you talking about healing your gut. I tried to find if you had written more about this anywhere, but couldn’t find anything so I thought I’d just ask :).
I’ve been suspicious that my daughter may have a leaky gut, but honestly, I’ve been in denial of doing a GAPS type diet b/c I know how hard it is. We did do GFCF for a while, I know not long enough and I can tell a difference since we’ve gotten off of it over the holidays. I know deep down that this is what needs to be done for her (and for me). She did well on GFCF, but boy was it hard trying to always be prepared (I’m not the most organized person…but I’m improving :). I finally sat down last week and started doing more research and realized she and I both have a high probability of candida overgrowth and we both need to heal our guts. I’m a little overwhelmed (I think it’s how long it takes to heal that seems so daunting) and I was just wondering if you could share your story and maybe any pointers that may be helpful. I’m already making my own detergent, cleaners, etc trying to get rid of toxins and trying to eat organic as much as possible. Thanks for your help…
Hi Amy! Thank you so much for reaching out! What fantastic questions 🙂
I think you answered some of your own question just using the mama gut instinct that we all have to just trust and go with 😉 I would venture to say that *most* Americans that grew up on the standard American diet have candida overgrowth and could spend a period of time healing their guts. You are not alone.
While I was healing my gut it was a good 8 years ago – before GAPS was really popular and out there. I had never heard of it until about a year or so ago. But what I did to heal my gut was very similar to GAPS. I had seen a holistic DO that did some food allergy testing to find out what I was sensitive too. THere were probably 30 things on there which really just boiled down to leaky gut. I eliminated those things for 3 months and the really high scoring ones like wheat and dairy I left out for 6 months to a year. If you cannot find a good Dr that will work with you on food sensitivities you can probably be pretty spot on assuming that most grains and dairy are screwing up your tummy. You were able to eliminate for a while which is great BUT you have to do something to heal your gut up. GAPS relies heavily on bone broths like this recipe in this post – if you are able to fit this in it would really mean all the difference in the world. I would add a good quality probiotic to replenish your population in your gut as well. It does take time…but 6 months goes by, and you are healed up. And you can start introducing those foods back in to try. I ended up staying off gluten for 2 years because when I would bring it back in I would bloat or have other symptoms. I can have it now with no issues although I do rotate my grains a lot so I’m not getting a ton of gluten all at once. When we made the switch to raw dairy it made every bit of difference in my digestion as well. To this day when I have dairy that has been pasteurized/processed I will get a tummy ache a little but I can drink glass after glass of raw milk without issue.
Take some time to heal up that gut – it really is SO worth it. Let me know if that helps or is clear is mud 😉 Keep me posted!
I’d never heard of using vinegar to bring out more minerals from the bones. Can you provide a source for this? Thanks.
Hi Denise 🙂 My method of chicken stock making is from what I have learned from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook by Sally Fallon and from that “Broth is Beautiful” article on the Weston Price website (http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/broth-is-beautiful). They both have the vinegar in the recipe for that. The very first class I ever went to for our local chapter of WAPF was about stock making and they emphasized the importance of that step too 🙂 I wish I had access to chicken feet for more gelatin but I just can’t find a source where I live. That is one other thing that both NT and WAPF talk about is using chicken feet for more nourishing gelatin 😉 Hope that helps!
Cool. Thanks for the info — it makes sense of course, since vinegar is an acid. I’d never heard of WAPF until I started my blog and began hopping around to other “real food” blogs. Pretty cool to learn that we’ve been following their guidelines on our own for years. 🙂
Renee,
I did your roasted chicken last night just finished my stock this morning, I love it! I never thought about the vinegar, so good to know! Quick question, what do you freeze it in?
Hi Bethany! Thanks for letting me know! That’s great! I freeze up in mason jars – either the Ball plastic ones or glass. Really empty glass jar works. I have some in empty peanut butter or honey jars 😉 Just be sure to freeze it without lid on so it can expand without breaking the jar – after a day you can add the top.
Great, Thanks! I have them in glass Ball jars now just in the ‘fridge.
Yay!
We don’t eat a lot of chicken. Does stock made from beef bones have similar health benefits?
Hi Amy! YES YES YES 🙂 I have my beef stock recipe ready to go for the end of the month I think! If you can get a few pounds of cow bones (sometimes labeled at the farm as soup bones) with lots of marrow in them – OH! It’s so healing 🙂 And so yummy 😉 You just need to roast the raw bones before you stick them in the crockpot. (Like 400 degree oven for about 45ish minutes – the oils that come out on your pan you can save in a jar (it’s the beef fat – tallow – great for frying and cooking!) I save the bones from our beef roasts and add them in the crock pot too. Same process with the vinegar to add in before you cook to pull the minerals out. If you don’t have a grassfed farmer by you, try a local butcher and ask for soup or cow bones – they should know what you are talking about. While you are at it ask for some “suet” so you can make some tallow for frying 😉 Keep me posted on how it