I’ve been asked more than a few times now how I make bone broth – especially now that I’m eating a carnivore diet and so I’m back using lots of bone broth! Well the truth is that it’s really simple to make and so I thought I’d make a quick ‘how to’ video and share my bone broth recipe to help anyone who’d like to try it themselves.
You can make broth from any type of bones, but if you have leaky gut or autoimmune disease, and you’re following the GAPS diet, or if you have problems with histamine reactions from bone broth, it’s best initially to use bones with plenty of meat on them (so basically a meat broth), as eating the meat is a recommended part of the GAPs diet. The meat can be eaten as is, or made into soup or stew which is what I often did for the first couple of years of making broth (and still sometimes do).
These days I make mostly bone broth and in the video below that’s what I’m making – a bone broth without meat. But the process for a meat broth is essentially the same.
Tools & ingredients needed for this recipe:
Which Bones Are Best For Bone Broth?
I often buy lamb bones with or without some meat on them. Sometimes I use beef and very occasionally I use pork bones.
Something else I often do is buy a whole free range, or organic chicken and use that. If cooked long enough your chicken broth will contain enough healthy, anti-inflammatory collagen from the chicken skin and bones to turn it into a jelly when cold, and this type of broth tastes amazing!
In the video above, I’m using a mixture of cooked and raw bones. If you want to try this, just save up all your cooked bones in the freezer until you have enough, and then bring them out to make your bone broth.
I will warn you though, that for a period of time I had to stop using the cooked bones as I began to have problems with histamine. I also had to shorten the cooking time of my broth for this reason. If you’re eating a carnivore diet and/or working on healing your gut, it may just be a matter of time and healing until your body can process the histamine and it will no longer be an issue.
What is the Best Appliance For Making Bone Broth?
I used to always cook my broth in an EcoPot (it’s an Aussie brand thermal cooker for camping and traveling similar to this one). It was perfect for the job when we were traveling around Australia in a campervan because I could have my bone broth cooking while we were driving. I would simply bring the bones to the boil, then simmer between 15 and 30 minutes (depending on what type of bones they were).
I could do this in the morning before we hit the road, and then once the simmering time was finished, I’d put the pot with the bones, or the chicken, into the thermal cooker for a few hours to do its thing and let them finish cooking.
These days, even though I still have my thermal cooker, I mostly use a slow cooker or crock pot like this one.
I also sometimes use my Ninja Foodi because I can use the pressure cooker function to make my bone broth a lot faster. In fact I can make it in ONE hour! This is great to reduce histamine reactions, but doesn’t quite have the flavor of a longer brewed bone broth…
If you don’t already own a slow cooker or a crock pot, I’d suggest you look at investing in one because they’re really worth their weight in gold. A word of advice though – no matter what you choose to buy to make your bone broth in, buy a big one. Bones are bulky!
Otherwise just use a large saucepan or pot on top of the stove. You’ll have to keep an eye on it though – for hours and hours…
So here’s my bone broth recipe:
Bone Broth
Equipment
- 1 Crock pot Pot, or thermal cooker
Ingredients
- Cooked and/or raw bones
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp Celtic sea salt
- Water
Instructions
- Add your chosen bones to your pot/crock pot/thermal cooker (ideally 1/2 to 3/4 fill your chosen vessel)
- Fill to about an inch or two from the top with water
- Add salt to taste (in my 7 litre crockpot I use 1 tbsp)
Cooking Instructions (depending on your chosen cooking vessel)
- Add all the ingredients and turn it on and leave it for at least 5-6 hours or more
Then…
- Once cooking time is complete let it cool a little.
- Use a large straining spoon to get all the bones and meat out of the pot, placing them in a steel colander positioned over a bowl to catch any liquid and leave the bones to cool.
- If you have meat bones, once cooled, pull the meat off the bones. Discard the bones and put the meat into a container in the fridge or freezer to use later, or use for a meal straight away.
- Pour the broth into containers and freeze or store in the fridge and reheat as needed.
Notes
Notes:
- I often do a whole chicken and use the meat for a couple of meals.
- Always make sure you use either Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salt – not the processed, white stuff from the supermarket. Without it’s minerals, it is not salt – it is sodium chloride.
- Add Bay leaves or other herbs as you wish for flavouring and health benefits.
- Use free range/grass fed/organic bones if possible.
