How to Make Stock
If you are looking for an easy way to start your journey of healing you gut, or cooking from scratch, or just up the nutrition in your everyday meals- you might want to try making your own stock!
I love having stock & bone broth on hand at all times if I can & use them for cooking all things like rice, beans, & steaming veggies. It immediately supercharges your nutrition counts while also deepening your food with incredible flavor.
As a mom I love to think of this as my secret weapon of health. Sometimes it’s hard to get in the all the nutritional must-haves in our children because they don’t like certain flavors or textures, but with broth & stock, you can add them in anywhere & they have no idea! Actually, they’ll often leave raving & they tummy full of incredible superfood material!
Another reason it’s a favorite thing of mine, is that it’s so incredibly easy to make! You just add your bone scrap after a meal, & some veggie scrap (or whole) into a vessel- I like a crock pot, fill it with water, & let it simmer away the hours while you tend the daily dozens with your precious ones!
What You Need to Make Stock
- 2–3 pounds of bones (beef, chicken, turkey, or a mix – marrow bones, joints, necks, or leftover roasted bones work great)
- 1 onion
- carrots, cut in chunks
- celery stalks, cut in chunks
- A splash apple cider vinegar (helps draw minerals from the bones)
- Optional: garlic, bay leaf, parsley stems, peppercorns
- Water – enough to cover everything
How to make stock
Put the bones back into the crock pot or stock pot, add some root vegetables like a whole onion, whole garlic bulb (I like to make it super dense, but that is up to each person what they’d like!), carrots, & or whatever other root vegetables you’d like. I also like to add celery if I have it on hand.
Cover all of the bones & vegetables with water & add a splash of vinegar to help extract all of the rest of the nutrients out of the bones. Let this mixture simmer for up to 12 hours. The longer you simmer this, the denser the flavor becomes. If you want a broth that is tastier to drink, you don’t want to cook it quite as long.
Once you are finished cooking your broth, strain it into your desired container, top with a lid, & refrigerate till you are ready to use it!
You can then add whatever herbs you would like, such a rosemary or thyme, season with salt & pepper & enjoy or you can leave it just as it is & use it to cook rice, black beans, lentils, or even pasta!
Tips for Making Nutritious Broth or Stock
I am always thinking ahead for whenever I need to make more broth, so whenever I’m chopping an onion or garlic, I discard the very outside layer of peal of both onion & garlic but keep all the rest, as well as the root & collect it in a gallon bag in the freezer until I’m ready to make the stock.
Other root vegetables I do the same, keep the carrot tops, celery bottom, celery root shavings & such, & add them to the gallon bag in the freezer!
Always be thinking ahead when making other meals, by saving the scraps you can enhance your broth without needing to dedicate an entire onion or garlic bulb to the broth!
Always make sure the bones & all parts of the vegetable are still fresh & good! Don’t make the mistake I made by thinking a little rottenness will be hidden by the cooking. It will affect the bone broth or stock you are making in a negative way.
Most of all, don’t over think it. It’s super simple. It is so satisfying to walk into your kitchen in the morning or after a day of being gone to the smell of bone broth simmering away, knowing there is goodness happening even while you were away!
What do I do with the bones after making bone broth?
Compost them! They are a wonderful addition to the compost pile, which can then be used to fertilize your gardens! Don’t give them to your pets though! After this long cooking process, they have become brittle & are more likely to shatter, making them a choking hazard.
Have fun making nutrient dense broth!
