Nutrient Dense Bone Broth

Nutrient Dense Bone Broth. My super simple, basic bone broth recipe that we use every single week for our collagen & gelatin rich broth!

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Jump to Recipe

---

Bone broth is a daily staple around here. Not only is it amazing for our health, our guts, immune systems, skin, hair, nails, but it also saves waste around the homestead.

All the weird parts of animals like chicken feet, chicken necks, pork neck bones, big beef bones that don’t have any meat on them, leftover bones from steaks, etc. Those would all be wasted otherwise.

And I hate waste. So does Luke, even more than me!

This is one of those pieces of ancestral wisdom that has fallen by the wayside in our culture of modern convenience. People on the SAD diet (standard american diet) would rather just go to a restaurant or pop an instant meal in the microwave, instead of taking the time to truly nourish themselves and their families. And we wonder why we see health issues and obesity at an all-time high.

Bone broth is rich in collagen

One of the reasons we drink bone broth almost every day is for the benefits of collagen. This is also why I use several types of animal bones whenever I make this. I use a chicken, maybe a rabbit, chicken feet, pork neck bones, beef bones, and beef marrow bones.

Beef bones are a great source of type I and type III collagen since it’s highly concentrated in the bones of cows. Bovine collagen supports skin elasticity and hydration.

Chicken is rich in type II collagen. This type promotes a healthy inflammatory response and is crucial for healthy joints, cartilage, and ligaments. 

Since collagen is found in chicken it only makes sense that it is found in eggs. Collagen-like proteins similar to Type I and V, have been found in eggshell membranes of the hen. This protein has essential amino acids that support healthy tissue growth, which can promote a healthy aging process and skin quality. 

So make sure you eat eggs. But don’t recommend putting eggs in the bone broth. You can get types I, II, and III from your bone broth if you use enough kinds of animal bones. Then just make sure you add in eggs into your diet regularly to get type V.

Gut health

One of the main reasons we love bone broth and collagen is for gut health. Nearly 80% of your immune system is housed in your gut. When you have a leaky gut it allows toxins, food particles, and infections to leak through your intestinal wall and enter your bloodstream, causing a lot of inflammation. This chronic inflammation can lead to autoimmunity over time.

Thankfully, your intestinal wall is made up of microscopic folds or “villi,” which are actually built of collagen. These villi literally seal all the little leaks in your intestinal lining by promoting tissue growth and cellular health.

This is one of the reasons we see so many autoimmune diseases these days. Because people have guts that have been destroyed partly by not having enough collagen to fill in the gaps and keep the invaders out of their bloodstreams. So we need to be drinking bone broth daily and/or taking a high quality collagen supplement from pasture raised animals.

Nutrient Dense Bone Broth

Ingredients:

• Animal bones (ideally chicken, pork AND beef bones for more types of collagen)
• Water
• Apple cider vinegar
• Optionally, you can also add veggie scraps, like onion peels, carrot peels, potato scraps, etc. But we usually don’t

I use a giant stock pot for this because we go through it like crazy!

Put all the animal bones in the stock pot (and veggie scraps if you have some). I usually use a whole chicken (we take the meat off to use in other dishes once it’s cooked), a package of pork neck bones, a package of big beef bones, sometimes some marrow bones (make sure to get the marrow out and into the stock!), about 6 chicken feet. And then finally any leftover bones from dinners during the week before. So chicken or rabbit carcasses, the bone out of pork chops and steaks, etc.

So you can see that’s a ton of bones!

And it’s from several different kinds of animals to get more variety of collagen and other nutrients.

Next you are going to add water. You want to fill it to just about an inch above the bones. If you do too much then you won’t get that nice gel when the broth cools.

Add a splash of apple cider vinegar. This helps pull even more nutrients out of the bones while they cook.

Time to simmer

Set it on the burner on high. We are going to bring it to a simmer, then turn it down and let it lightly simmer. I usually let this go 10 to 12 hours, but you can go up to 24, and I leave it covered the whole time.

Cool the stock down enough to strain it. I pull the chicken and all the bigger bones out with some tongs. Then pour the rest of it through a strainer and into jars to store in the refrigerator. Usually it’s enough to fill a gallon and a half gallon jar.

I strip all the meat off the chicken and throw all the bones and scraps out to the chickens for them to pick at.

And your broth is done! Once it cools in the refrigerator it should get nice and gelled up, where it jiggles when you move it. That’s the sign that it was done properly.

Troubleshooting

• If the broth doesn’t gel properly then try adding less water the next time.
• If you are having a histamine response (bone broth is high in histamines) then simmer it for less time, so it’s more of a meat stock.

Pin it for later!

Print the recipe out for later!