Bone Broth

MsCzar

Questions for those of you that make your own bone broth:
What do you add (if anything) and how long do you cook it? On the cook-top? Slow cooker?
In the past, I've made chicken and turkey broth using just the carcass and a bit of salt, but I'm seeing online bone broth recipes that call for vinegar, hot pepper and/or honey to create a savoury hot beverage. I have a collection of both cooked and raw chicken bones ready to go!

hesn92

a little apple cider vinegar supposedly helps get collagen and nutrients out of the bones or something. I'm not sure about that. But I do the typical broth veggies like carrot, celery, onion. I just keep scraps in a bag in the freezer. Some salt and whole peppercorns, bay leaf. I don't drink it though, I just use it for cooking.

lynn_glenmont

I generally have bags in the freezer that I add bones, carcasses, vegetable and herb trimmings to (usually I have multiple bags dedicated to beef, chicken, and seafood, and possibly one for just veggies). So I dump a bag from the freezer in a pot and add water, then add additional aromatic vegetables (onions, carrots, celery) if I don't think there was enough in the bag, and additional fresh or dried herbs (thyme is pretty versatile -- I try to stay away from things that I strongly associate with a specific cuisine/flavor profile unless I have a specific plan to use all of the stock for a specific recipe in that vein) if I don't think there were enough of those in the bag, plus usually bay leaf and peppercorns.

I believe the vinegar in so-called bone broth recipes are intended to help leach minerals out of the bone and into the liquid.

I sometimes heat up a cup of stock or broth in lieu of hot tea or coffee, and generally all I add when I do that is a little salt (I don't salt the stock when I cook it originally), but mostly I use it for soup or to cook grains, or as the base of a sauce.

acpgee

Like @lynn_glenmont I have separate ziplock bags in the freezer for poultry bones, pork and beef bones, shellfish shells, and vegetable trimmings. For the red meat and shellfish, I roast bones in the air fryer for 30 minutes before adding to the stock pot. I don't usually bother with the poultry bones, but doing so might heighten flavour so I should probably experiment with that.

I normally simmer about 5 hours for bones and 2 hours for shellfish. I always add a quartered onion (skin and all, which helps colour the broth) as well as whatever is in my vegetable trimmings bag.

1harleymama1

Thanks ladies, I never made my own broth before with the exception of my leftover turkey carcass after thanksgiving when I turn it into turkey soup. You explained just how seemingly easy it is to do and how to save up enough of the bones by storing them in the freezer until ready to use. I'm getting really excited about getting started on this.

MsCzar

Is there such a thing as cooking bone broth too long? I have enough bones for a small slow cooker pot. Will that work? On 'low' or 'high'? Overnight? Since it's my first try, I'll leave out salt or veg so that I'll have a good idea of the flavour baseline for my water:bone ratio.

acpgee

I make broth often. Main use for poultry broth is risotto. Main use for beef broth is Vietnamese pho. Main use of shellfish bisque is for warming up tinned white beans to serve under pan fried fish.

i don't think there is danger of cooking broth too long.

Lisanog3

MsCzar wrote: »

Is there such a thing as cooking bone broth too long? I have enough bones for a small slow cooker pot. Will that work? On 'low' or 'high'? Overnight? Since it's my first try, I'll leave out salt or veg so that I'll have a good idea of the flavour baseline for my water:bone ratio.

I make it in the crockpot and cook it for 20 hours for a really concentrated broth. If I need it sooner 8 hours will do but it’s not as flavorful.

sherrymiller8093

I have used beef bones from the butcher. Slow roasted them in the oven, then cooked them in a crockpot with fresh water and lots of sage. Tastes like thanksgiving…..you can add sea salt and fresh cracked peppercorn. The only thing I don’t care for is the smell when cooking them. That’s why I started putting the sage in it.

acpgee

And don't forget to save bones from ready made meals such as rotisserie chicken or KFC. That's something I overlooked for years.

If you prefer to make neutral beef broth but occasionally want to make pho, the first step of this recipe shows how to convert conventional beef stock to pho broth.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/beef-pho

punpiep

I was taught that bone broth has nothing added to it. You just use the bones. Once you add items, it becomes stock. I make stock.

A lot of people put various veggies in, which I save for veggie stock. In my chicken broth I add onion and a smidge of carrot and a little white peppercorn. In beef broth I just use onion, tomato, red wine, worcestershire and a little, tiny bit of mushroom.

In my veggie broth I use all the veggies but more onion than anything and not much (if any) mushroom.

If I don’t have any on hand, I use Better Than Bouillon. As a snooty hater of store-bought stock, even I have to admit that it’s pretty darn good.

There is a lot to be said for adding nothing, just having bone broth. You can always add flavors but you cannot take them out. On the other hand, why waste perfectly good scraps.

MsCzar

I made the bone broth with nothing added. Being my first try, I ended up with two pints from a small slow cooker after 18 hours. The colour was golden gorgeous! I'm already saving bones for the next batch. Next time I will crack any long bones to expose the marrow.
For the chicken noodle soup, I needed more liquid volume and added a pint of broth made from water with Better Than Bouillon. The resultant soup was delish.
Still, it seemed to me that while making plain bone broth is simple and cost effective, I'm not sure if I'm just not turning a simple chicken broth into a more laborious and time-consuming process than it needs to be.

Safari_Gal_

I salute anyone that can make a palatable bone broth. It’s been a work in progress over here.
I do agree that slow cooker bone broth has yielded the best results for me.