Importance of Soup

I remember when I was a kid and I used to get sick, my parents would tell me “It’s ok, just drink some soup.” In Chinese culture, drinking soup was sometimes considerably more powerful in its healing power than eating, because of its ability to doubly condense crucial nutrients and hydrate the body at the same time. After I gave birth to my kids, I drank a lot of chicken soup. No, not the chicken noodle soup you might see in American movies. This chicken soup includes black chicken (yes that’s a thing, google it), herbs, ginger,  and pork. This particular kind of soup was created to help postpartum mothers replenish their bodies with vital nutrients and recover. Every ingredient in the soup has a purpose – whether it’s ginger to help the body restore heat from blood loss or ginseng to provide the new mother energy – drinking soup has a wealth of benefits. Especially now as a mom, I try my best to incorporate as much soup as I can into our family’s daily diet. When making soup, there’s a ton of recipes out there, but without a doubt, this is the easiest, richest in flavor, and best bone broth recipe. This is why I’m sharing with you guys today, my favorite bone broth recipe: beef bone broth. 

Best Bone Broth Recipe

Beef bone broth was something I had perfected only a couple years ago. I wanted to create a soup that was healthy and nutritious; something my family can drink on a daily basis. Bone broth is a nutrient-dense broth that promotes healthier skin and hair, builds your immune system, builds strong bones, and helps the liver detoxify the toxins in our body, reduces inflammation, and builds a healthy gut. We love drinking the bone broth early in the morning on an empty stomach to activate our digestive systems and to absorb vital nutrients first thing in the morning. 

Over the years, I’ve refined the recipe over and over again, building upon what I’ve tried and tested, but this is by far the best bone broth recipe I’ve ever made. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, but I feel confident that you and your family will be more than satisfied with this amazing miracle broth! I make this bone broth every week (yes every week!) on Sunday’s so that my family can enjoy it for the rest of the week! To prep the broth, I typically buy the ingredients at a local market: grass-fed beef bones, pork, vegetables, etc. There aren’t any rules to making this bone broth.

You can definitely base your broth on my recipe, but feel free to be creative and experiment with different ingredients as you choose! There’s no wrong way of doing it. As long as you just have to have the basic foundation, feel free to switch it up from time to time. But personally, I like making bone broth the old fashioned way; I don’t use instant pot or electric soup pots, where you just set a timer, but that’s just me! Everyone has a different method and as long as you make a healthy and delicious broth, how you make it doesn’t really matter! Anyways, let’s dive into the basics of making bone broth!

NOTES

Bones – We want to buy grass-fed beef because grass-fed meat means the cattle was raised on a healthy diet. Remember we are what we eat. We want to put grass fed beef in our soup so our soup can be rich in flavor and more nutritious. For my bone broth I like to use neck bones, knuckles, and some bone marrows. We want bones, tendons, cartilage and knuckles with very little meat. This will result in a more collagen-rich broth. Choosing high-quality bones is pretty important. You can also use bison, wild game, pork, or chicken. (I also toss in whatever trimming of meats I saved from cooking and put these in the broth.)

Pork – I always throw in a piece of lean pork for added flavor. I usually buy pork tenderloin because it’s less fatty than other cuts.

RECIPE

Yield: 6 quarts (24cups) of broth (depending on cooking time)

• 8 lb beef knuckles & marrows
• 3 lb beef neck bones 
• 2 lb  lean pork 
• 3 large onions, peeled and quartered  
• 6 stalks of celery, chopped
• 4 large carrots, chopped
• 2 sheet of kombu (seaweed, this adds umami to our broth and seaweed is super nutritious) 
• 6 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 4 bay leaves 
• 3 tbsp of peppercorn
• ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar 
• 1 fresh turmeric 
• 6 slices of ginger
• Salt to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Parboil bones by adding beef knuckle, marrow, and neck bones to a pot and filling with just enough water to cover. Bring pot of bones to a boil and remove after 10 mins. Rinse impurities off bones with cold water. This process eliminates the foamy impurities of the bone and meat.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 
3. Put beef knuckles, bone marrow, and beef neck bones on a sheet pan. Add one chopped onion and thyme and season with a few pinches of salt. Roast the bones until browned (about 30 minutes). 
4. In a large 16-quart stockpot, bring 8 quarts of water to a boil. Add bones and pork meat. Let it boil on medium heat for 2 hours. 
5. Add the celery, carrots, apple cider vinegar, peppercorn, onions, kombu, turmeric, and bay leaves. Continue to cover and simmer for 24-48 hours on the stovetop. (we achieve a richer and thicker broth when we cook it for more than 24 hours.) 
6. After simmering, use a skimmer  or a ladle to remove the oil and fat on top. Set aside for future use; I put these fats in a jar and use it to saute vegetables. 
7. Season with salt to taste and let it cool for about a couple of hours. 
8. After the broth is completely cool, you can strain the broth and transfer it into jars. I like to transfer them in 16oz mason jars. In the morning, I like to take one out and just heat it up in the microwave. 
9. Enjoy!

HOW I USE MY BONE BROTH

The best bone broth recipe for every occasion

1. Savory oatmeal as a breakfast option
2. Mixed with vegetables and rice as a meal, especially when my kids were ~6 months old and just started to eat solids. (I hardly ever had to buy them pre-made baby food)
3. Recycled the fat for sauteing vegetables and other dishes to give added flavor as opposed to using other oils. 
4. Bone broth noodle soup 
5. Boiled with vegetables 

Love, Tiffany