How to Make the New Green Juice: Bone Broth

Bone broth is one of the most popular trends in health and fitness right now. People are drinking it to lose weight (Do you know you can listen to 2 books for free if you sign up Audible 30-Day Free Trial?), improve their skin and nourish their joints.

I believe it originated from ancient time when food was scarce and people found bones were actually nourishing if they could "chew" them. In China, it has long been a must menu item for women on the one-month confinement diet after child birth. If I lived in China, it would be one of the favorite Spring Festival dishes every year as long as there are animals slaughtered for the holiday.

In this Instructable, I'm going to show the best bone broth recipe out there. If you come to this article, no more looking as far as how to make bone broth is concerned. If you're interested in knowing more of its benefits, I recommend Dr. Kellyann's Bone Broth Diet: Lose Up to 15 Pounds, 4 Inches--and Your Wrinkles!--in Just 21 Days. Again, do you know you can listen to 2 books for free if you sign up Audible 30-Day Free Trial?

Here it goes how to make bone broth:

Ingredients (in the order of importance):

3 to 4 pounds mixed chicken, beef, pork bones, short ribs, oxtails, knuckles, and neck bones, fish bones

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

1/3 cup tomato sauce/paste

2 medium carrots

3 celery stalks

1 sweet onions

1 leek

1/2 cup sweet cut corn

a handful of chestnuts

2 bay leaf

1 cinnamon stick

1 tsp sichuan peppercorns

several star anise

2 licorice root slices

2 Astragalus root slices

Extra ingredients: fresh ginger, fresh or dried mushrooms, fish sauce, garlic. The first few are must. The remaining ingredients are to make a bone broth with rich color, wonderful taste and smell. Just bone and skin makes a white, flavorless broth with somewhat meaty smell, after it's cooled to gelatin form, it can be seasoned with spices and hot sauce (shown last photo).

Equipment

large slow cooker, Large stock pot, or 6-quart pressure cooker (or larger)

Glass baking pan

Strainer

Steps:

Roast bones

Cut vegetables

Slow cook for 24 hours minimum

Strain broth

Chill broth and skim off fat

Store and use of bone broth

Note: This article may contain affiliate links as references for the same or similar products used in this project. If you click on the links and make purchases I could receive a small percentage of commission from the advertising company with no extra cost to you.

Some cook may say this optional. To me it's must if you want bone broth with deep rich color and flavor.

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Coat the bones with tomato sauce and arrange in a single layer in the baking pan. Roast for about 1 hour, turning once, until the meat and bones are evenly browned.

At the end of roasting, turn on stove top and bring a tea kettle of water to boil.

No need for fancy knife work here — big chunks are perfect.

Combine every ingredients in the slow cooker.

Pour boiled water in to completely cover the ingredients.

Cook on low for 24 hours minimum. Add more hot water if necessary to keep the ingredients completely covered in water. You can also pick out some meaty bones when the meat is falling off the bones. Give the lean meat to your children, use it in soups, stir fries, or salads. Return bones to the pot.

The broth is done when dark and flavorful — go on, taste it! You should taste a good balance of savory meat flavors and sweet vegetable flavors.You should stop cooking when the broth tastes good to you.

Strain the broth through a fine-mesh strainer to remove all the big pieces of bone and vegetable. You can pick out big enough pieces of meat and vegetables and use them in a soup and discard the remaining solids.

Let the bone broth cool to room temperature, then place it in fridge overnight. Fat floats to top and solidifies.

Carefully skim off the fat. You can use the fat in cooking or discard it.

You can store the broth in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

To use it, scoop just enough to a small pot, heat it up, season with black pepper and cilantro, drink it. It is usually very low in calories, if you drink it at a meal, it helps you feel full for the rest of the day. This may be due to its gelatin content, which can promote satiety.

Use it in creamy or chunky soup. Your soup will taste much better than using water to make it. Just by this one benefit, it's worth of the effort to make it.

Use it in stir fry, it helps you use less fat, prevent food burnt to the bottom of pan, add flavor to your dish or won't dilute the flavor of your dish.

It's great to add rich flavors and juiciness to your noodles sauce.

You can also simmer the broth over low heat on the stove top until it's reduced by half or so. When it's cooled, it's firm gelatin. You can season it with salt, vinegar, cilantro, glaze it with hot chili oil and pepper flakes. It's a delicious dish on itself.

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Note: This article may contain affiliate links as references for the same or similar products used in this project. If you click on the links and make purchases I could receive a small percentage of commission from the advertising company with no extra cost to you.