All-Purpose Bare Bones Broth (Recipe)

With just three ingredients and merely 10 minutes of actual hands-on work, you will create a delicious home-made broth you can feel good about cooking with.

It’s simple, economical, and will blow any store-bought broth out of the water.

Pork broth goes with pretty much everything - simply substitute this excellent, yet mildly flavored, broth in any recipe that calls for chicken or vegetable broth.

You can make this in an evening after work and you don’t even have to thaw the bones first.

I don’t call it Bare Bones Broth for nothin’.

Not to mention, you’re also going to get a pile of pulled pork, ready to add to a nourishing casserole or barbecue pulled pork sandwiches. Bonus!

Worried that it’s too hard, too time consuming, or too complicated to make your own broth?

I totally get it – and I promise this recipe is utterly doable and totally worth it.

Broth making can become a fine art if you want to go down that rabbit hole – with pre-roasting, additional herbs, long discussions of cook time, seasonings, vinegar usage and water proportions.

There’s none of that here.

This is the perfect beginner’s recipe – no muss, no fuss, just get started.

You can explore nuances of broth making once you’ve got this under your belt 😊

One batch typically makes 3-4 qts liquid broth, which will look and perform like commercial broth.

Except with much better flavor and cleaner, healthier ingredients.

And you also a get generous portion of cooked meat plus a bit of rendered lard to use in your cooking, too.

(Once you've mastered this quick All-Purpose Broth, you'll be ready to try long-cooked thickly-gelled bone broth.)

All-Purpose Bare-Bones Broth

Ingredients

1 bag (5 lbs) One Straw pork broth bones, frozen

2 tsp salt

16 C water

Directions

Get out a 13 quart pot.

Remove frozen bones from the bag and place in the pot. Add salt, water and a lid.

Place on stove and bring to a boil over high heat.

Crack lid and reduce heat until it maintains a low boil. Cook at a low boil for 3 hours then remove pot from heat.*

Using a slotted spoon, carefully remove bones and meat from the hot broth and place in a 9x13 pan or similar.

Allow the meat to cool until it can be handled, then remove the meat from the bones and set aside for using in a delicious casserole, soup or pulled pork sandwiches.

Allow the broth to cool for at least half an hour in the pot before ladling into glass jars – scorching hot liquid poured into glass jars can crack them. Even after a cool down period, pour the broth into jars slowly to warm the jar a bit first.

Pour or ladle broth into jars.

Optional - For the clearest finished product, first strain the broth through a wire mesh strainer or a colander lined with cheesecloth. This helps capture small bits of meat. This step is optional - without straining, your finished product will just have small bits of meat in it which doesn’t affect most recipes.

Place a tight-fitting lid on the jar and place in the refrigerator to cool completely.

Further Tips:

• I like to use a wire mesh strainer stacked inside a canning funnel so I can pour or ladle the broth directly into jars (see above image). Alternatively, pour broth through a cheesecloth lined strainer placed over a heat proof bowl. Then transfer strained broth to jars.
• Removing the meat from the bones while it is still warm is much faster and easier than if you refrigerate it first. I strongly recommend not refrigerating the bones before removing the meat.
• If you use mason style jars and two piece canning lids, the heat of the broth will often seal the lids. This is not considered safely “canned” and must stay refrigerated, but it helps keep out all oxygen and keep the broth fresh longer.
• Some fat will rise to the surface of the broth as it cools in the refrigerator. This is great! The fat acts as a seal to protect the broth and help keep it fresh. Do not skim it off until ready to use the broth.
• This fat is clean, safe, healthy rendered lard. Use it in your cooking in the place of other oils – like for sautéing vegetables. Or stir some into whatever you’re putting the broth in for added nutrition and depth of flavor.
• Broth typically lasts several weeks, but for longer storage you can freeze it. After cooling the broth, pour into plastic zip top bags or other freezer containers and freeze.

*A 3-hour cook time results in a liquid product like commercial canned broth. If you’ve heard about the benefits of bone broth and want to make a thickly gelled final product, keep the simmer going for at least 8 hours. Click here for a deeper dive on bone broth.

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