Chicken or Turkey Bone Broth

There is so much hype around collagen peptides and for good reasons, they are super amazing for your body and brain! Rather than spending loads of cash on supplements you can simply make your own. Preparing your own collagen rich chicken bone broth makes good economic as well as nutritional sense. Organic chicken broth currently costs about $4 per quart. Organic whole chickens can be purchased for around $2.80 per pound. The carcass of a 5-pound chicken will easily yield more than 4 quarts of homemade broth. Four quarts of broth goes for $16, and a 5-pound chicken sells for $14. Rather than buy broth, make your own, get the chicken meat for free, and get $2 back to cover the cost of the broth’s vegetables and gas or electricity needed to cook it overnight!

You can use this recipe to make Turkey Bone Broth if you’d like to use all of your Thanksgiving Turkey. There are two schools of thought regarding the easiest approach to making bone broth. My husband used to prefer to make a large double batch less often. We used to have a second refrigerator in our garage, so we could easily store as many as 10 quart bottles. As we periodically prepare chicken dinners, he puts a first carcass in the freezer, then makes broth after our next chicken dinner when we have a second carcass. He uses a very large, 10–12 quart stock pot over the stove. Our friend Annette makes broth one chicken at a time. She has only one refrigerator, so 10 quarts is far too much. She slow-cooks the chicken in an electric crock, then strips the carcass of meat, adds water and vegetables, and cooks the broth right in the crock.

No stock pot is necessary, and there is just one clean-up job for the chicken dinner and the broth making. She stores broth in the freezer in 8-ounce jelly jars, which are very convenient for a single meal.

All veggies are optional. I often just do collagen rich bone broth with bones and no veggies at all. Do as you please.

Pro-Tip: Blend the entire carcass, bones and all! This adds incredible collagen to your broth and is rich in nutrients for your hair, skin, nails, and joints.

Ingredients

  • 1 carcass from a 5–6 pound chicken (or two carcasses of 3-pound chickens) or Turkey
  • 5 quarts water
  • 2 carrots, diced or shredded
  • 2 stalks celery, diced or shredded
  • 1 bunch parsley chopped
  • stalks of any broccoli (sliced) you don’t cook and eat. Some people only eat the florets, but you’re missing so much nutrients, put them in your broth.
  • 1 onion, diced or shredded 1 small bunch parsley chopped
  • 2 clove garlic, pressed or minced
  • ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2 chicken feet (optional), I found them at my CSA from a local organic farmer
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • Few dashes of pepper
  • 1 teaspoon of Rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil (optional) Any other bones from beef or ox are welcome or you can do a different beef bone broth, simply substitute the chicken carcass for beef, buffalo or ox bones. Miscellaneous vegetable scraps you might have saved; I save fennel stalks. broccoli stalks, zucchini ends, you name it.

Preparation
1. Prepare all vegetables. I use a food processor shredder attachment, which quickly exposes maximum surface area to the liquid.

2, Combine all ingredients in stock pot or crockpot. Bring to a boil, then maintain at a low boil for 8–24 hours. The longer you cook it, the more histamines so if you’re sensitive to histamine foods avoid this broth or cook it see if cooking it for a shorter period is better for your body.

3. You can strain out the vegetable matter, but I don’t. Next, I put everything, bones and all, into my Vitamix and blend on high for several minutes. Then I strain the liquid through a strainer into a large bowl, just to get out some of the “sand” at the bottom, this is normal and from the bones.

4. Pour the collagen rich liquid into glass mason jars or bottles. Store in refrigerator or freezer. Use for making soups, and add to concentrated soups to increase nutrient and liquid content, or just drink 1 mug full for breakfast. If you store in the freezer, don’t put them in while they are very hot. You can place a metal utensil, like a knife, into the jar to help it cook more quickly. the metal will attract more heat. And leave about 2 inches of space at the top of the jar to allow for any expansion of the liquid during freezing.

Buen Provecho!