Healing Chicken Bone Broth
Chicken bone broth is one of the most nutritious and healing foods. It’s an immune-booster, digestion aid and super-tonic for glowing skin, hair and nails. It’s also particularly nourishing during pregnancy and afterwards for replenishing the body. And for children, it’s an excellent good fat to add to meals like pasta and soup.
Your bone broth should end up much thicker than your normal soup broth because you’re cooking the ingredients, especially the chicken bones, for much longer (12-24 hours). A good broth will solidify when it’s in the fridge because it’s so gelatinous, but it goes runny again once you heat it up. It’s the perfect thing to make in the slow cooker overnight or when you’re at work, and you’ll be rewarded with liquid gold that’s incredibly versatile.
Bone broth is great on it’s own in a mug as a cold weather drink, and the perfect canvas for a quick but more substantial soup by simply adding fresh veggies when you heat it up like carrots, kale and broccoli. I always freeze some as it comes in handy for anything that calls for stock like stews, sauces and risotto.
I have a 10L stock pot for making broths so I start off with around 9 L of water and ingredients which eventually reduces down to 4-5 L of actual bone broth.
INGREDIENTS:
1kg of chicken bones/frames
4- 6 chicken feet
1 onion, chopped roughly
2-3 carrots, chopped roughly
2-3 celery stalks, chopped roughly
1 bunch parsley, chopped roughly
3-5 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
2 Tbs apple cider vinegar
4 dried bay leaves
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp sea salt
METHOD:
If you’re using chicken feet, blanch them first to “sterilise” them and remove any impurities. Do this by placing them in a saucepan of cold water and bringing them to the boil over high heat. Remove from the heat, drain.
Before putting everything in the stock pot to boil, I Iike to ROAST my chicken feet and bones first as it results in a better flavour. To do this, simply place the bones/feet in a roasting tray, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast in a 200 deg oven for about an hour until golden and sizzling. When ready transfer these and any juices into a stock pot. and transfer to a large stockpot.
Cover with water (at least 6 litres if you can) so there’s about 5cm above the bones. Bring to the boil and skim off any impurities that have risen to the surface. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting (or transfer the bones/feet and liquid to a slow cooker now).
Add the remaining ingredients, cover, and cook slowly for 12-24 hours. The water will evaporate as you cook so check it now and again to make sure the ingredients are covered by water.
The longer you cook, the more dense and concentrated your broth will be and the less you will yield. For example, if you cook for 12 hours you may end up with 1-2L more than if you cook for a full 24 hours. I personally prefer the more flavoursome, darker, nutrient-dense 24 hour broth but the choice is yours!
When it’s ready, allow to cool slightly, then strain the liquid through a fine sieve to remove the bones and veggie bits.
The broth will keep in the fridge for 5-7 days, especially if it has a nice layer of fat on top, and up to 3 months in the freezer.
Notes:
Adding a couple of spoons to a baby’s pureed vegetables is a wonderful way of adding nutrients to their first foods. It also makes a great “hidden” superfood in pasta sauces, soups and sauces especially for fussy toddlers and older children!
Chicken feet are the secret to getting that jelly-like consistency, because they’re so rich in gelatin and collagen. But make sure that they’re not bleached. That’s right, chicken feet are sometimes bleached in peroxide to disinfect them and make them look whiter, but you definitely don’t want to be putting that chemical in your body! Just ask your butcher when you buy them.
It’s important that the chicken bones are from free range, pasture-raised and organic chickens, as you’re extracting and ingesting minerals from them in a concentrated form. My favourite brand is Brooklet Springs as they are very local to me, and they happen to deliver Australia wide too.
If you end up using this bone broth to make a soup, you can go half water and half broth so you don’t use it all in one go, especially if you make the richer 24 hour broth.