Hey beautiful, meet one of your new BFFs for skin, hair, nail and ligament health, that also helps boost your immune system, while supporting gut + joint health! It's a super food that's great to sip on, add to soups + stews or saute any veggie or meat with.
This recipe is an excerpt from my Living Fully E-Cookbook - crockpot (CP), Instant Pot (IP) + stove top (ST) versions included.
I typically do broth after I’ve made a whole chicken in the Instant Pot, throwing all but meat back in. You can also look for / find 100% grass-fed beef bones or pasture-raised chicken backs or feet in the freezer at your grocery store, or ask a local butcher or rancher at the farmer's market. Remember - quality matters!
A few additional notes:
If you’re pregnant or postpartum, bone broth and/or collagen (BB+C) are a MUST. I learned from @lilynicholsrdn that in pregnancy, glycine (an amino acid found in BB+C) demands go *way up* and it's essential to get it from your diet.
Postpartum, BB+C aid in recovery, plus healing + supporting: ligaments, connective tissue & joints that were affected during pregnancy and birth.
If you’re planning to feed bone broth to baby, OMIT THE SALT (until one year - can slowly start to add back in) and add individually to servings as you/rest of fam consumes. Depending on thickness of broth, sometimes I dilute with H20.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, bone broth is blood- and “chi”-building. Stress, exercise, work, pregnancy and breastfeeding are just a few ways that your body uses blood in TCM. Bone broth +collagen help boost this energy back up! 🙌🏻
Bone broth, collagen and gelatin has made a profound difference in my own skin and many of my clients skin, with some research supporting this too. These foods contain the amino acids that make up collagen, which is what your skin is made of. It's also great for ligament + connective tissue health, along with hair + nails.
INGREDIENTS:
- Carcass of crockpot chicken and/or/plus 2-3 grass-fed bones
- Enough filtered water to fill the pot after all ingredients are in
- 1 onion, peeled or a leek or two
-3 carrots, celery stalks + garlic cloves, peeled
- 2 Tbsp. sea salt and 1 Tbsp. black peppercorns
- Fresh parsley and/or 1 Tbsp. dried thyme + oregano
- 2 tsp. raw apple cider vinegar
- 1-2″ knob of fresh ginger, peeled
- 2+ scoops grass-fed gelatin powder
- Optional: egg shells from pasture-raised chickens + extra veggie scraps!
DIRECTIONS:
If you've done instant pot or crockpot chicken, after pulling chicken off carcass, add bones + skin back into the instant pot / crockpot with the “juice” that’s there. If you're starting from scratch, start with #2.
Add all remaining ingredients. For crockpot or slow cook method in the instant pot = 12-24 hours. For instant pot = 30-60 min. For stove top = Boil, then 12-24 hr. simmer.
When done, strain liquid. Good for 7 days in fridge or 3 mos. in freezer (if you freeze, do so in a glass jar and be sure to leave at least an inch of room at the top, as the bone broth expands when it freezes. I also love freezing bone broth "ice cubes" for use when sautéing).