Bone Broth Recipe

Bone Broth Recipe: Directions for preparing homemade chicken bone broth, thick, hearty, nutritious, essential for all your chicken soup recipes.

This page offers four variations - ways to make chicken bone broth! Click on a link below to skip to its section, or keep reading...

1. Make chicken bone broth from dinner leftovers, a cinch for any cook. 
2. Make chicken bone broth from raw chicken pieces. Chicken keepers such as myself who process birds from time to time will have lots of raw pieces which don't typically get eaten, but also are too useful to just throw away, for example, feet, gizzards, backs, and even wings.
3. Make chicken bone broth from chicken feet. Chicken feet broth is full of collagen, and can be made simply, or with added vegetables.
4. Make chicken bone broth from entire roosters or hens. When we process old athletic birds, we sometimes utilize the entire carcass in the broth-preparing process. This makes an incredibly thick and rich broth which is known as chicken broth. 

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Four Bone Broth Recipe Variations

An excellent bone broth is literally the backbone of a delicious and nutritious chicken soup or stew. 

Any of the following bone broth recipe variations will give you a rich and healthy broth. And because you will make your bone broth with more than just the bones, the flavor will be noticeably enhanced. Not surprisingly, chicken bone broth made with American Bresse chickens usually has an extra punch of flavor that is almost inexplicable in its richness.

Learn more here about bone broth benefits.

1) Make Your Own Bone Broth from Leftovers

Making your own bone broth at home with leftover chicken is so very easy.

Here is an ugly photo - a picture of a heap of bones with leftover gravy and mashed potatoes. But, this is literally the start to amazing chicken bone broth. 

Take these chicken leftovers after a homemade chicken dinner - all the scraps of chicken, chicken skin, and all the chicken bones, including the leftover gravy, and any small quantities of vegetables that you prefer not to store, for example, potatoes or green beans. With these leftovers and any vegetables or noodles you'll add later when making soup, you can create another entire meal.

Don't worry about germs - the boiling temperatures kill everything.

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Why bother with leftovers? Because besides the money savings from creating a second meal out of the remains of the first meal, bone broth is incredibly healthy - a rich source of protein, energy, and glyconutrients¹ - the substances that normalize and enhance one's immune system function. I for one can attest, anecdotally of course², that problems associated with leaky gut and allergies seem to be much reduced in my case. This stems from apparent reduced inflammation and an increase in overall health and vitality (in my case, at least...).

Turns out: Your food can be your medicine, and your medicine is actually your food, not Big Pharma drugs.³

Chicken Bone Broth Recipe from Leftover Chicken and Bones

For this bone broth recipe, you'll need:

• The leftovers from 1-2 chickens, including all chicken scraps, skin, and bones
• 3 quarts water in an ample pot, enough to cover all ingredients
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3-4 garlic cloves, or more if you prefer, whole or chopped
• Optional: 1/2 cup chopped celery, 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1 tsp salt, 6-10 peppercorns
• Mix/Match spice options: 1 tsp poultry seasoning, modest bunch fresh thyme, 1 bay leaf, bouquet garni. 
• 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar. I use apple cider vinegar, but most any vinegar will work. Vinegar makes the broth somewhat acidic, helping to leach the minerals out of the bones and into the bone broth, boosting its health benefits. (There is no hint of vinegar flavor in the final bone broth.)

Put all ingredients into a large pot. Cover, bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to simmer for 24 hours. Some individuals like to simmer bone broth for 48 hours. I find that 24 hours works perfectly.

The cool thing about making bone broth is that you can mostly walk away from it for hours and let it simmer to its heart's content, doing little else besides keeping an eye on the stove for safety's sake.

Turn off the heat overnight for safety. Reheat to boiling in the morning, and then simmer all day until evening.

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Remove the Bones from the Chicken Bone Broth

After the bone broth has cooled somewhat, drain the liquid carefully and completely through a sieve or colander into another pot. THIS is your chicken bone broth. It should smell amazing, and the liquid should be an opaque light to medium brown.

From the remaining chicken solids, discard all the bones, including the long bones, neck, backbone, and the little rib bones. Because you added vinegar, the finer bones are likely to be brittle and crumbly. Discard the bouquet garni if you used one.

If desired, pick out any pieces of chicken meat, and set them aside for later use, or add them to the bone broth, or simply leave them with the cooked solids. 

When cooled, all the cooked solids can become a special treat for your dogs and cats. My four barn cats love the cooked chicken solids. In this way you use nearly all of the chicken, even the minerals leached from the bones.

Using Your Delicious Bone Broth!

1. Make it into chicken soup! There are so many variations on chicken soup that can be created; we'll share our favorites, and I hope you'll share yours, below!
2. Add broth in moderation to your morning green smoothies.
3. Drink the bone broth hot as an energy drink, or as an immune-boosting remedy for various ailments whether respiratory, intestinal, or other. (Your own immune system knows how to heal your body as long as you supply it with the necessary dietary nutrients.)

How do you like to eat your homemade bone broth?? Click here to share!

2) Make Bone Broth from Raw Chicken Pieces

Keepers of meat- or dual-purpose chickens frequently process birds either for sale or for personal use. In France, the heads and feet stay on the carcasses of Bresse chickens when they go to market, as proof that the bird is a genuine Bresse chicken.

Here in North America, chickens are sold minus their heads, feet, innards, and feathers. At my farm, the barn cats get the heads, leaving me with a LOT of chicken feet and organs. Works for me! I use these to make wonderful bone broth.

Typical ingredients when making this bone broth recipe with pieces from five chickens:

• 10 feet from 5 chickens, well scrubbed
• 10 wings, skin and all
• 5 necks, including any attached skin
• 5 backs
• 5 gizzards, cleaned
• 1 liver, 1 heart (the other four sets become a separate meal of liver and onions)
• 5 - 6 garlic cloves, minced or whole
• 1 onion, chopped 
• Optional: 2 carrots, chopped into chunks, 2 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp Salt, 6-10 peppercorns
• Mix/Match spice options: 1 tsp poultry seasoning, modest bunch fresh thyme, 1 bay leaf, bouquet garni. 
• 2 tablespoons vinegar

Directions:

As when making bone broth from leftovers, place all the pieces in a very large pot and cover it all with 3 quarts of water. Put the lid on the pot, bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer for 24 hours. (Remove from heat overnight or when the kitchen cannot be supervised.)

When done and slightly cooled, drain carefully through a sieve or colander as described above. If you like gizzard, liver and heart, rescue them from the cooked solids and add them to the broth or to homemade chicken soup. While you're at it, the wings will have some meat that can be pulled off and added to the broth. Enjoy!

3) Make Bone Broth from Chicken Feet

Directions for making this bone broth recipe from fresh or frozen chicken feet:

• 20 feet from 10 chickens, cleaned and rinsed well
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced or whole
• 1 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1-2 tbsp vinegar
• 2 quarts filtered water

Pictured: The bowl is holding 22 chicken feet, some of them smaller than others. These feet made the chicken feet broth pictured below.

Place the feet, garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and filtered water into a large pot. Cover, bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer for 24 to 30 hours. (Remove from heat overnight or when the kitchen cannot be supervised.) 

When the broth has cooled somewhat, drain the liquid carefully and completely through a sieve or colander into another pot. Optionally, pour the broth through a couple layers of cheesecloth in the sieve or colander, if those toenails creep you out.

Bone broth made with chicken feet is much lighter in color, and is very rich in gelatinous collagen. That is a big reason why many cultures include chicken feet as a staple part of the diet. When chilled, chicken feet bone broth gels nearly solid.

Collagen is really healthy. It helps people look younger longer by reducing wrinkles and keeping nails, hair, and joints stronger. Collagen intake slows down the rate of bone loss as people get older. And possibly surprising, collagen helps to normalize the microbiome in the intestinal tract as well as healing damage to the intestinal tract itself. Pretty cool!

Season and drink hot, or add to smoothies, or use it to make chicken bone broth soup. Mmmm!

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4) Make Chicken Broth from Old or Whole Chickens

Old chickens, whether roosters or hens, eventually outlive their usefulness on the farm, but they can still give you one more service: Stew. The broth made with whole chickens is rightly called chicken broth. Old chickens make incredibly flavorful chicken broth. So delicious!

• Load the entire chicken into a large pot or crock pot. 
• Follow any of the ingredient lists above. Include the tablespoon or two of vinegar, and the cloves of garlic. Add salt and peppercorns to taste.
• Fill the pot or crock pot to the top with filtered water.
• Simmer for hours, and then simmer some more. Simmer until the meat is soft.
• After cooling, drain the liquid carefully and completely through a sieve or colander into another pot.

The remainder will include the bones, which should be discarded, as well as all the meat, which can be set aside for a separate use. Chop some of it finely and add it back into the chicken broth. 

From Bone Broth to Chicken Soup

To turn your chicken bone broth into the best chicken soup ever, go to the Chicken Soup Recipe and create a fabulous chicken soup or stew from the best chicken broth you have ever tasted!

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Bone Broth Recipe Notes

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