How to Make (Immune Boosting) Bone Broth

If you’re not making bone broth yet, you definitely should be. Even though one of the primary benefits of bone broth is to boost your immune system, you shouldn’t wait until you’re sick to make it. Plus, bone broth will boost your joint health, provides a bunch of non-essential amino acids for building muscle, and is incredibly easy to digest.

Directions to Make Bone Broth

Bone broth is incredibly easy to make. It just takes a while.

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 pounds of bones (with the marrow)
1 onion
3 garlic cloves
1 Tablespoon of salt
Pepper (to taste)

Optional: Any other herbs or aromatics you’d like to add. If you like carrots, you can add them for sweetness, but they’re honestly probably not necessary.

Directions:

• Blanch the bones by covering them with cold water in a large pot. Bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat and let simmer for 20 minutes. Dump the water.
• Heat your oven to 450 degrees. Place the bones on a baking sheet and cook for 30 minutes. When you remove them from the oven, be sure to scrape the bits off of the baking sheet to add more flavor to your broth.
• Put the bones in the biggest pot you have. Roughly chop the onion and anything else you’ve decided to add (Except the garlic and herbs – that goes in later). Toss in the onion, pepper, and anything else you’ve decided to add.
• Fill the pot to the point where it just barely covers the bones.
• Bring it to a boil. Reduce to a simmer until done. For the first 2 hours, if anything pops up on the surface, remove it. You’ll probably see some foam appear. You don’t want that in your broth. You don’t need to stand directly over it. Just check it every 15 minutes or so. *Add your garlic and herbs during this stage.
• Remove from heat and strain with a fine strainer. You don’t want to be eating random pieces of bone.
• Store in a glass container and place it in your refrigerator or freeze.
• Enjoy it one cup at a time or make gravies or soups with it. All you really need to support your immune system and joint health is approx a cup a day.

Words of Advice

The thicker the bones, the longer they’re going to take to break down. Chicken is only really going to take a few hours. Beef bones should be cooked overnight (or start your broth as soon as you wake up on the weekend). The longer you can cook it, the better your broth will be for you. The best nutrients are trapped within the bones themselves.

Use filtered water. You don’t want to add anything impure to the mix.

Ge the highest quality bones you can. If you’re using chicken bones, make sure they’re free-range. If you’re using beef or lamb, make sure it’s grass-fed.