Bone Broth, Stock, does a body good! 2 dinners!

To quickly summarize: you'll boil a chicken (with kosher salt, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, and half a lemon) for a couple hours (or Instapot pressure cook it for 45 min), remove it from hot liquid, let cool, remove meat and set aside for dinner, then return bones, skin, everything else to the liquid. Bring to boil, then let simmer for 24 hours (or slow cook in Instapot). Let cool to warm, then pour through a fine mesh strainer to remove bones and stuff, then use the liquid right away to make chicken soup, or refrigerate over night to make it later. If you let it cool, the fat will solidify on top for removal (if you want to save it for frying things or greasing pans), but there are health benefits (like collagen) to it. We always try to use as much of the animal as possible and that is the point of this recipe. 

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Lots of health benefits here. People say this comfort food heals the body. It is especially good in the wintertime. The acid of the lemon helps draw out the minerals. Some say this keeps you young and your joints healthy by restoring the collagen in your body. I have friends who drink a cup of this every day. In many cultures they do always have a pot of this on the ready. 

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*Long directions: It is best to start this mid-morning to lunchtime. You will have chicken meat for dinner today, and the broth to use as a base for soup tomorrow. But this broth can also be a base for gravies, cook rice in it, noodles in it, etc. It is essential and so much better for you that store bought or msg fake stuff. 

Top picture is chicken. Bottom is chicken and beef bones. Use any bones from the food you make. Save in freezer raw until needed for stock.

You can start with a whole chicken or just the leftover chicken bones. If you do a whole chicken, you will remove the meat the first day and return the bones to the broth to simmer overnight for the second day. *If doing a beef broth with beef bones add mushrooms, garlic, a bit of tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, and bay leaf to add to the flavor.

Ingredients:

Take about a 4 lb chicken, rinse it, and place the whole thing in a large pot on the stove or the InstantPot. (But if you've just had roast chicken, only add the leftover bones, meat, skin). I like to add in some beef marrow bones because I like the flavor and different bones have different benefits. Clean chicken feet are really good too!

Fill with Water to cover twice as high as the bones, but make sure you still have a couple inches room from the top. About 2-3 quarts of water. It will cook down.

Seasonings: Add a bit of onion, garlic, celery, carrot, and turmeric as desired.  

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar- helps pull all the goodness from the bones (you won't taste it later)

I like to salt later, but you can add salt if desired.  

Directions:

Bring to a boil then lower to simmer for about 3 hours, covered (or pressure cook on low for an hour). Let it cool naturally for an hour or until it's cool enough for you to handle. Skim off any skum from the top. Remove chicken and take all the meat off. Set meat aside for dinner and return bones to the water/stock/broth you've got going. (Dinner #1 -You can use most of this meat for your meal tonight! So throw together something with the chicken meat!)

Continue to simmer or use the SLOW COOK button on the Instapot to let the bones continue to simmer in the broth all night about 12 hours give or take, but it can go up to 24 hours or more.

The next day, remove lid, and let broth cool till its just warm. Pour liquid through a fine strainer into a large pot. Discard bones and such. At this point you can refrigerate it or begin preparing 2nd dinner! Bone broth done!

*If doing a beef broth with beef bones add mushrooms, garlic, a bit of tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, and bay leaf to add to the flavor.

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Traditional Healing Soup: Bring the pot of strained broth/stock to a boil again adding whatever you like: chopped onion, celery, carrot, potato, garlic, pepper, salt, paprika, turmeric, or whatever herbs or ingredients you like in your chicken noodle soup. Or none of it! It's a simple soup and the broth is already going to be killer good, so it should be pretty simple.

Once the vegetables are soft, add in and of the reserved meat. Also add in noodles. Cook this for about 10-20 minutes, tasting and adjusting the salt and seasonings if needed. Done! You have a lovely home-made chicken noodle soup with homemade chicken stock!

This will solidify in the fridge like gelatin, but when you warm it back up it will become a broth again.

If you kept the stock it in the fridge overnight, pull it out the next day and if desired, remove some of the fat that has congealed on top (but some say it has collagen in it that heals the joints- in any case, don't just throw the fat away- it's good to cook with). Now your soup is ready to heat and use as a soup base, or sauce base, in rice, anything you can think of that needs chicken broth/stock.  

You can adapt this to a crock-pot or stove top by just lengthening the time for the original chicken to cook. You might need more water to account for evaporation.

This can work with beef, fish, lamb, pork, etc. Stock or Broth is the base for every soup and sauce and helps flavor many meals. 

Bouillon is a substitute, but is has MSG, so not so good. You can buy stock or broth, but the quality is uncertain.