Making bone broth at home is a lot like how we make it at Brodo. There are no big secrets – in fact Chef Marco wrote a broth recipe book that’s widely available! These recipes are based on those that were passed down from generation to generation in Chef Marco’s Italian family. The traditional recipes were intended to make use of leftover bones, bits of meat, and vegetable scraps in order to enhance the flavor and nutrition of weekly meals. The process is very simple, yet it’s anything but easy. In fact, we encourage our community to give it a shot! We hope that making it yourself is a rewarding, delicious experience – but we’re confident that the majority of people who try it would rather hand the task of making bone broth over to us at Brodo.
What is Homemade Bone Broth?
The way most people make soup at home is to buy a box of stock at the grocery store and pour it over simmering vegetables and meat. These grocery store stocks are typically made by adding industrially made concentrates to water – perhaps with some collagen powder for extra protein. You certainly would not want to sip on them on their own. While they don’t taste the best, they certainly are convenient which is why most people buy them.
These grocery store stocks are in stark contrast to homemade bone broth. The homemade version is much more delicious and nutritious, but also a lot more time consuming. To those uninitiated to bone broth making, you may think the process consists of throwing a bunch of ingredients in a pot with some water and boil the heck out of it. You could certainly do it that way, but it wouldn’t be very tasty. Making delicious bone broth at home requires a time-consuming, several-step process of acquiring bones, roasting them simmering them with vegetables and aromatics, and straining. The end result, if performed properly, is something rich, savory, nourishing, and even a bit magical. It’s delicious enough to sip on its own yet also makes incredible soups, stews, and more. Much like Brodo!
Ingredients
In the old days, bones, leftover bits of meat, and vegetable scraps were saved over the course of a week of meals to make broth – out of frugality and necessity. It is still entirely possible to do it this way especially after cooking a nice big roasted chicken or the Thanksgiving turkey. Nowadays we’re much more likely to buy boneless cuts of meat versus whole chickens and sides of beef, so bones must often be purchased from specialty grocers (local or online), whole-animcal butcher shops, and farmers’ markets.You’ll specifically want to look for soup bones – not marrow bones. For beef this means knuckle bones, neck bones, feet, and anything with joints. For chicken you’ll want to look for the carcass (the bones that are leftover from removing all the sellable cuts) – and don’t sleep on the feet. Poultry feet create the most gelatin-rich broth you can find. However they don’t contribute flavor so you’ll want to add them to a mix of other bones.
Chef Marco loves adding vegetables to broth in order to boost the flavor as well as vitamin and mineral content. Whenever you prep vegetables for cooking, save the peels, tops, and any gnarly vegetables that are too difficult to chop. Alternatively you can buy vegetables specifically to make broth. Onion (peeled), carrots, and celery are the classic vegetables used in all of Chef Marco’s broths. Others like tomato, garlic, parsnips, mushrooms, and fennel are also great contributors of flavor. Many different vegetables can be used but be careful when using cruciferous vegetables, green peppers, onion peels, and anything that might add bitterness. We recommend using them sparingly – if at all. Herbs such as parsley, oregano, and thyme – and spices such as turmeric and ginger all make great broth ingredients as well.
Salt is not only a flavor enhancer – it also contains an essential nutrient – sodium. Chef Marco prefers sea salt as it contributes trace minerals and is free of anti-caking agents and other additives. Just make sure to add it at the end – not the beginning – so you don’t accidentally oversalt your broth.
It’s also very important to choose good water. It doesn’t need to be bottled spring water from the Alps, but it should be clean and taste good on its own. A simple water filter can usually turn subpar tap water into suitable broth-making water.
Remember – quality is key when it comes to nutrition as well as flavor. Try to get the best ingredients you can get your hands on. When choosing meat and bones, always go for grass-fed, grass-finished beef and pasture-raised chicken. Organically raised chicken is best whenever available but organically fed beef is typically fed organic grain – and grain is not what cows should be eating. When in doubt, buy as much as you can from the farmers’ market. Ask questions, get to know your farmers, and develop a trusting relationship. You’ll not only make a new friend – you’ll get access to the best local food around.
Tools
Making bone broth doesn’t require a lot of fancy equipment, but you do want to make sure to have a few basic tools on hand. The only one that’s absolutely necessary is the stock pot – otherwise you can skip or improvise the rest with some creativity (or tolerance for slightly imperfect broth). For example the fine mesh strainer could be swapped for a colander lined with a clean dish towel. If you don’t have a colander, you could always skip the fine straining – just know that you may have some small bits in your broth. A tongs could be swapped for the spider skimmer if need be. Italian nonnas were quite thrifty and didn’t always have access to these specialty tools – yet they made delicious broth at home!
- A stockpot. Make sure it’s taller than it is wide to allow for the best circulation, but besides that there’s not much else to look for. Since you’re not browning anything, it’s not necessary to use an expensive heavy-bottomed pot. You could also use a large-capacity slow cooker.
- Several baking sheets or roasting pans for roasting the bones
- A ladle for skimming off impurities
- A spider skimmer for removing bones and vegetables from the broth without losing the liquid
- A fine-mesh strainer for a clearer finish
Process
The process may vary slightly depending on your recipe, but here is the basic process for Chef Marco’s broths:
- Roast the bones at 375 degrees F for about one hour (flipping them after 30 minutes)
- Put the roasted bones and any bits of meat into your large stock pot, add enough water to cover by an inch or two and bring up to a boil (this should take about an hour for a 5-quart batch).
- As soon as the broth starts to boil, drop the heat to simmer. Simmer for 2 hours, skimming periodically to remove foam and impurities.
- Add the vegetables and simmer for another 12 to 16 hours, continuing to skim the broth periodically.
- Strain off the solids using the spider skimmer and fine-mesh strainer.
- Salt to taste.
- Transfer to jars or other containers and store in the refrigerator. Skim off the solidified fat after the broth cools. The broth will last in the fridge for 5 to 7 days.
For detailed recipes, make sure to check out Chef Marco’s broth cookbook
One big thing to consider before making broth is what you’re going to do with all the leftover bones and mushy vegetables. When you want to make broth in any sort of quantity, this can amount to a lot of bones and vegetables. One good use of the leftover boiled meat is called polpettone (which is found in Chef Marco’s broth cookbook), but you’ll still be left with a lot of non-reusable scraps. If you don’t have access to a large-scale compost that’s designed to process animal bones like Brodo does, this can mean dealing with a lot of hot, steaming garbage. Hot tip: make your broth close to garbage pickup day!
The Money and Time Investment
When it comes to cost, let’s use the beef broth in Chef Marco’s broth cookbook as an example. In order to make 5 quarts, you’ll need about 13 lbs. of bones and 5 lbs. of beef shank meat. At a local butcher shop in NYC, the cost of meaty beef bones is $5.99, which is about average for good quality bones. Let’s say good quality beef shank bones are $10 per pound. Then you need several pounds of vegetables along with herbs, spices, and sea salt. The cost of the meat and bones alone amounts to $6.40 per cup! For reference, Brodo costs as little as $4.13 per cup when you subscribe. Then add in the hours of your time babysitting a simmering pot. Don’t get us wrong – we think its well worth the time, money, and effort. But we can also see why not everyone chooses to make their own!
Turkey Bone Broth Recipe
Thanksgiving is one of those rare occasions when we are left with so many meaty bones that we don’t know what to do with them. The best part about turkey bones is that you don’t need to leave your house to acquire them, and you don’t have to pay extra for them. That’s why we believe it’s a great intro recipe for those interested in making bone broth at home. If you don’t mind waiting until Thanksgiving, check out our popular leftover turkey bone broth recipe.
Brodo: A Smart Addition to Your Pantry
As you can see, making bone broth at home isn’t for the faint of heart. Nor is it for anyone with a career, kids, and/or an otherwise busy calendar. Add in the cost of the ingredients and it just doesn’t make a lot of sense in our modern society. But just because you don’t have time to make bone broth yourself doesn’t mean you can’t reap the benefits of this delicious superfood.
Lucky for you, we do all the hard work for our customers. You can get the same high quality bone broth you would make at home – delivered to your door. Once you have Brodo in your pantry, you have easy access to highly nutritious, crave-worthy snacks, quick soups, protein-rich sauces, and so much more. As soon as you start sipping it, you’ll understand why so many people choose to drink it daily. If the delicious flavor isn’t enough, clear skin, a healthy gut, strong joints, and better sleep may convince you to add this to your daily routine.
At the heart of our company is taking the best of both worlds – convenience and quality – making them available nationwide. Because we believe that flavor and nutrition should never be sacrificed.
