I rarely make homemade broth because I’m so lazy that I’d rather just crack open a can. However, I’ll admit that making beef bone broth using your slow cooker is really easy and requires almost no hands-on time at all.
You can easily substitute pork or chicken bones in place of beef and the results are all good. If you befriend your local butcher, he may even give you a big bag of bones for pennies.
Here’s what I assembled to make about 4 quarts of beef bone broth:
- 2 carrots, chopped medium
- 2 celery stalks, chopped medium
- 1 medium onion, chopped medium
- 7 garlic cloves, smashed
- 3.5 lb of beef bones (from US Wellness Meats or your local farmer)
- 2 bay leaves
- Kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
- water
Here’s how to make it:
Dump the vegetables in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker
…drop in the beef bones…
…tuck in the bay leaves, sprinkle on a wee bit of salt, drizzle the vinegar on the bones…
…and add enough water to cover everything.
Program the slow cooker to cook on low for 8-10 hours.
When it’s ready, pour the broth through a strainer, and discard the solids.
You can ladle out some to drink now, or…
…store the liquid in a large CorningWare or glass container for later.
The bones I used were pretty fatty so it made the broth taste unappealingly greasy. I stuck the broth in the fridge overnight and scraped off the top layer of solidified fat.
The broth underneath looks like beef Jell-O…
The broth will keep in the fridge for a few days and in the freezer for several months.
When you’re ready for a steaming cup of the stuff, just scoop the meaty Jell-O into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. (I won’t tell anyone if you nuke it in a mug in your microwave.)
Voila – perfection!
(Want an even faster way to make bone broth? Check out the recipe for my Quick Pressure Cooker Bone Broth – it’s also in my iPad® cookbook app!)
Looking for recipes and resources? Head on over to my Recipe Index or my Resources page. You’ll also find exclusive recipes on my iPad® app, and in my cookbook, Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel, December 2013).
Goodlucky!
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