Bone broth is a total foodie fad, and for good reason. The vitamins and minerals from bones are great for you, for many reasons.
Regularly consuming bone broth can help prevent osteoporosis, keep skin youthful and healthy, strengthen your immune system, help repair muscles and help you grow strong hair and nails.
For a homesteader, bone broth is very appealing if you are regularly butchering animals, as you can freeze the bones from virtually any animal and use for bone broth later. It’s a great way to use up every part of the animal and harness the healthy nutrients hidden in the bone.
If you don’t have animals you regularly slaughter, you can get bones from large bone-in roasts, when you roast a whole chicken or turkey, or you may be able to buy or even get free bones from your local butcher. Just ask!
Here’s how to make it in a slow cooker:
Ingredients:
2 lbs large animal bones
2 carrots, chopped
1/2 stalk celery, chopped
3 tbs vinegar
Instructions.
- This step is optional, but to get the maximum flavor out of your bones, roast them in the oven on a cookie sheet for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
- Place your bones in your slow cooker, and fill with water until almost full. Depending on the size of your slow cooker, this might be about 4-6 quarts.
- Measure in the vinegar, and let the bones and vinegar sit in the cold water together for about 20 minutes. This helps extract the minerals from the bone broth.
- Add your vegetables and turn on to low.
- Let cook for 24 hours.
- After 24 hours, you should have a rich, fragrant, dark-colored broth. Strain out the bones and vegetables. You can cover the bones and vegetables with an equal amount of water and do another batch if you wish, but this will be considerably weaker.
- Store your broth. It keeps for about a week in the fridge, so it’s best to save whatever you would like to use in the coming week in the fridge, and freeze the rest.
Enjoy!
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