Homemade Bone Broth (A.K.A. Veggie Tea)

Such a great season to spend a little more time in the kitchen with the colder weather upon us!

This is a really easy Bone Broth recipe that I make every week and store in the fridge to use as I need. A huge plus to making your own broths is that it helps you to reduce your waste, since this recipe uses veggie scraps and bone scraps. Bone broth is also high in protein and rich in collagen. Its anti-inflammatory and helps to heal the gut, as well as the skin! I sip on this broth all week, usually I try to drink a mug or 2 a day!

Each week, depending on what I was cooking, my box of veggies scraps to add to the broth will vary, so there is room to add or change ingredients depending on what you prefer! All week as I am cooking or using veggies, I save all of the scraps and put them into a large container. I keep it in the freezer and just keep adding to it until its full!

Some of the veggie scraps I usually use:

• Leek tops & root

• Bok Choy root end

• Carrot peels & ends

• Celery root & tops

• Shiitake mushroom stems (Powerful Anti-viral!)

• Ginger peel & pieces

• Onion peels & pieces

• Garlic

• Cilantro or parsley stems

• Turmeric root peel

• Fennel root ends

In this recipe I use the bones from a whole chicken that I roasted the night before, I prefer chicken bone broth, but you can sub that out for turkey if you prefer or have that on hand.

*I like to make sure to pull off all of the meat before I put it in the fridge, since it will be hard the next morning when the chicken is cold.

Directions:

1. Place all of the veggie scraps into a large stock pot.

2. Add the chicken bones and the extra juices that might be in it.

3. Cover the bones and veggies with filtered water.

4. Add 3 TBSP apple cider vinegar

(this helps to pull the nutrients out of the bones)

5. Add 3-4 TBSP Salt, you can adjust this depending on what you prefer the taste to be like

6. Add Turmeric and Black pepper, you can again omit this or adjust it depending on your preference. I love to add it since it helps to boost the anti-inflammatory benefits of the broth.

I add about 1-2 teaspoons of turmeric power & one teaspoon black pepper.

*Important to add black pepper to improve the bioavailability of the Curcumin (the anti-inflammatory compound) in the turmeric. Ginger also helps to absorb the Curcumin too.

7. I add lemon peels to mine, this can be optional, but its a really nice fresh flavor in the broth. I juice the lemon and cut up the lemon peel into 4's.

8. Once everything is added to the stock pot, Bring it to a boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer, and let it go for at least an hour. I try to pick a day to make this when I am home for a few hours. I get it all going and then let it simmer for a few hours, like 3-4 hours. The longer it goes the better the flavor will be! But if you don't have the time, an hour will do perfect!

After its done simmering, take off the heat and strain out all the bones and scraps. You can jar it up and store in the fridge for about a week, or it freezes really well. Nice to always have on hand and use in soups or anything else.

*Note- you can also freeze ice cube trays full of broth and then pop out the cubes after frozen and fill a jar or container and keep in the freezer. This is nice if you only need a little bit of broth and don't want to unthaw a whole jar. Also, these cubes are great to add to rice or other dishes to add a lot of flavor!

Enjoy!!