How to Incorporate Bone Broth into Your Diet: 8 Incredible Tips

Bone broth, which is produced by gently simmering animal bones and connective tissue for 24-36 hours, is a staple of most culinary traditions. Animal bones have been stewed into delectable dishes for thousands of years by people all over the world, including Thai coconut chicken soup, Turkish lamb stew, and traditional American chicken noodle soup.

Drinking bone broth is a tradition that is gaining renewed popularity. Rich in nutrients, good fats, and amino acids, chicken and beef bone broth are the mainstays of traditional and ketogenic diets.

Do you want to know how to utilize bone broth for health benefits? You can increase the amount of this nutrient-dense food in your diet each day by incorporating more of these clever and delectable bone broth ideas and recipes. Bone broth can inspire you to get really inventive with everything from stews to mashed potatoes and desserts!

What is Bone Broth?

Animal connective tissue and bones are simmered to create a bone broth.

Soups, sauces, and gravies frequently contain this incredibly nutrient-dense stock. Recently, it has become more well-liked as a health beverage. The earliest known use of bone broth was by hunter-gatherers who transformed otherwise unusable animal parts like bones, hooves, and knuckles into a broth they could consume.

Bones from virtually any animal, including pork, beef, veal, turkey, lamb, bison, buffalo, venison, chicken, or fish, can be used to make bone broth. You can also use marrow and connective tissues like fins, feet, beaks, hooves, and gizzards.

3 Health Benefits of Bone Broth

Immunity Enhancement

The small intestine serves as both the main location for nutrient absorption and the first line of defense for our immune system. Immune function may be hampered if the gut barrier is compromised or starts to leak. The amino acids found in bone broth may be protective.

Intestinal barrier function in critically ill patients was found to be supported by intravenous glutamine supplementation, according to a recent study. Similarly, supplementation with glycine was able to increase intestinal immunity and microbial diversity in mice.

Good for Digestion and Intestinal Health

The protein in bone broth that is most prevalent is gelatine. Gelatine binds with water once it enters the digestive system to aid in the normal transit of food through the intestines.

Gelatine, along with other amino acids found in bone broth, may have therapeutic potential in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, according to animal studies; however, more research is required to determine its relevance to humans.

Improve Joint Health

According to studies, patients with osteoarthritis may experience less pain, stiffness, and loss of joint function when using collagen made from chicken cartilage.

Gelatine may also be beneficial for injury prevention and tissue repair. Gelatine and vitamin C supplements, according to a 2017 study, increased collagen synthesis after exercise and helped to repair tendons.

How to Incorporate Bone Broth into Your Diet？

I’ve had to get inventive and find ways to sneak more bone broth into my diet because we all know how important it is to consume enough of it. But it’s really not that challenging. You’ll find that switching out bone broth in a lot of your go-to, tried-and-true recipes is very simple!

Of course, you can just drink it, so bottoms up. My husband prefers to consume bone broth in this way. He usually eats this as a snack after seasoning it with some salt, pepper, and other ingredients. But it really isn’t creative, so it doesn’t count. Here are some creative ways to add more bone broth to your diet:

Drink Bone Broth Straight

Start off with something straightforward and uncomplicated. Heat the broth, pour it into a mug and sip it slowly. A lot of people hit a cup of warm broth first thing in the morning in place of coffee; I prefer to have a small bowl seasoned with a little garlic and fresh coriander before my main meal at dinner time.

To season the broth, you can use whatever you like—grated ginger, spring onions, cracked pepper, celery salt, a little lime juice, fish sauce, tomato paste, garlic, basil, miso, and the list goes on.

To Steam and Sauté Vegetables

Veggies will absorb nutrients from whatever they are cooked in, so why not use bone broth? And when it comes to veggies, I recommend broccoli, spinach, kale, carrots, green beans, cauliflower, asparagus or Brussels sprouts. The final step is to stir in some butter and a few garlic cloves, and your ideal side dish is done.

Make Cauliflower Rice With It

These days, cauliflower rice is a popular and healthy side dish, and for good reason. It contains enough fiber to keep you on schedule, along with vitamins C, K, B, and folate. Using bone broth to cook the cauliflower is a great way to add both some flavor and nutrients to this dish.

Check out Don’t Mess With Mama’s straightforward recipe. I like to start cooking my cauliflower rice with some sauteed onion and garlic, which you can also do in some bone broth.

Use Bone Broth in Stews

The bone broth only increases the health benefits of stews, which are already known to be high in nutrients. Bone broth is a great addition to any stew you make. I’ve discovered that bone broths made from beef or chicken are frequently interchangeable, and stews made with vegetables can frequently use meat broth. Try my hearty beef stew or this chorizo and vegetable stew.

Bone Broth in a Smoothie

Sincerely, I’ve never considered adding bone broth to my smoothie, but apparently, it’s a thing. This bone broth protein mocha fudge smoothie from Dr. With a significant protein boost, Axe offers the mouthwatering flavors of bananas and chocolate. Additionally, there are gut-healing amino acids that can be found in a bone broth that is concealed inside. Genius!

Use Bone Broth in a Soup

Bone broth is obviously best used for this, but I figured I should still bring it up. Any soup that calls for ready-made stock or stock cubes can be upgraded into something much more nutrient-dense by adding some potent bone broth.

For a meal that is incredibly healing and nourishing, try my zucchini, turmeric, and coconut soup with some lovely chicken or beef bone broth.

Check out my egg drop soup with greens and shiitake mushrooms for a dish with an Asian flair. It can be made with either beef or chicken bone broth. Vietnamese beef pho or Thai Tom Kha Gai is also tasty choice for using up the bone broth.

How to Make Bone Broth

Although it is simple to make homemade bone broth, the process can take some time. The stovetop or slow cooker method needs to simmer the food for at least 24–36 hours in order to fully extract the nutrients. However, if you use a pressure cooker, such as the Instant Pot, the cooking time can be cut down to a few hours.

Find a good source of bones if you want to make your own bone broth. Utilizing ingredients you already have in your kitchen, such as the carcass of a rotisserie chicken you purchased at the grocery store, is a straightforward option. For the highest-quality organic bones, look for sources of grass-fed beef and free-range, organic poultry, which are frequently sold at farmers’ markets, specialized grocers, and butcher shops.

By incorporating cuts with a high proportion of cartilage and connective tissue, such as whole chicken carcasses and beef knucklebones, into your bone broth, you can boost the collagen content. When your bone broth cools, it will have a thick, gelatinous appearance as a result of this. More minerals are extracted from the bone with the aid of apple cider vinegar.

Final Thoughts

The bone broth itself is flavorful, filling and easy to digest, making it a much healthier beverage choice than any sweet beverage. Bone broth is a flexible ingredient that many recipes can benefit from in the kitchen. It is simple to prepare and even simpler to buy. It may also benefit your intestines, skin, joints, and sleep, though there isn’t enough proof to say so.

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