One of the Fish Fam's favorites is homemade brone broth!
It's really delicious and the health benefits are incredible.
Dr. Axe always has great health info...
Let me first say that this is really easy to make in the Instant Pot! Before I had an Instant Pot I would do it on the stove in a big pot and it took all day. It was lots of work. Now with the Instant Pot all I have to do is throw everything in the pot, push a button, and it's ready to go. I don't have to check on it and stay home and watch it all day. And because it cooks it at such high pressure so many more nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and goodness get extracted.
You have to start with bones. Either beef or chicken. Or whichever animal bones you prefer. I buy these beef bones (pictured below) at our local grocery store. If they don't have them out just ask the butcher if he has any. You'll want about 2-3lbs.
To make chicken bone broth, I buy two whole chickens at Costco and cook them in my Instant Pot. Seperate the meat and bones. Freeze extra meat and bones until I have 2-3lbs of bones.
Start off by roasting the bones in the oven at 400deg. for 30-40mins. turning half way.....
Roasting the bones gives the broth more flavor it helps give is a deeper and richer flavor from the caramelizing meat and marrow.
Toss them in the instant pot with lots of different veggies, herbs, spices, and lots of garlic and onions.
My go to veggies are carrots, celery, onions, and garlic. I also throw in any other veggies that I have laying around like cabbage, bok choy, bell peppers, squash, etc. I love adding fresh herbs like rosemary, parsley, bay leaves. Add some distilled or apple cider vinegar (it helps extract the nutrients better out of the bones). And don't forget the salt and pepper!
Next step add water. Make sure to only fill up the pot to the MAX line in the pot.
Put the lid on and make sure your valve is closed properly to "sealed." Then push the pressure cook button to cook for the longest time it will let you. Push the - button to get to the max time faster. My newer Instant Pot IP-DUO60 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Pressure Cooker, 6Qt/1000W pot's max cooking time is 240 minutes. P.S. I'm so sad in our last move it got beat up. So sad! Being military we move alot and I keep all my nice kitchen appliance boxes for this very reason!! My kids didn't listen and didn't put it in the box. I'm just glad it still works!!
My older 6qt. duo pot the max cooking time is 120mins. When it's done wit the 120mins I will start over at 120mins. The longer you pressure cook this you can get more nutrients out of the bones.
When done cooking let the pressure cooker do a NATURAL RELEASE. That means leave the lid on and don't touch it. Let it naturally depressurize. You'll know it's done when the little silver thing on top of the lid has fallen into the pot. If you do a quick release after it's done the broth it will squirt BOILING HOT liquid out of the valve all over the place! I let it go over about 40mins or even longer. Sometimes I leave it in there for a few hours beacuse it stays very hot.
Once the pressure has gone down carefully remove the lid because the liquid will still be hot and steam will come out. I set up in my sink a big stainless steel bowl with these amazing stainless steel fine strainer I got from Bed Bath & Beyond. It all sets up nicely in my sink. I do not recommend usuing plastic bowls because the broth is so hot. I never put hot foods in plastic because the hot temperatures cause the toxic chemicals in plastic to leach into your foods. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/is-plastic-a-threat-to-your-health. I store all my hot foods in glass or stainless steel.
With hot pads carefully pour the conents of the pot into the strainer.
The strainer will catch all the veggies and bones.
Lift the strainer out and now check out your beautiful broth!...
Next step I take is to put it into the refridgerator so the fat can separate. You don't have to do this, but I don't have a gall blader and don't handle fat well at all. Plus there is another step that I take that the broth needs to be at cool temperatures for.
Over night in the fridge the fat rises to the top and hardens.
Check it out! I break off the fat and store it in the freezer for other uses.
You can't tell in the pictures but the broth turns into gel which is a good thing. That is the healthy collagen at work! Collagen does so many good things for your body. It helps create better joint, hair, nails, gut, and immune health just to name a few. Remember Dr. Axe's post I linked above? Read it!
To store it I like to freeze it and do two differnent things. Either put some into freezer bags and lay them flat on cookie sheets or use silicone molds like I have shown down below which I like better.
Then I get these awesome slicone molds (that you can find on Amazon) and pour the gelled broth into. Make sure to put the silicone molds on a cookie sheet because the molds are flimsy and need to be on a hard flat surface to go into the freezer.
Make a flat space in your freezer, which at different homes and with different freezers I've had to get creative with by stacking my frozen food items just right so they were level and what not. But now that we have our big stand up freezer I don't have to do that. Good luck!
After they are frozen I pot the broth pucks out of the silicone molds and into a freezer bag.
Then we can add them to different things in the amounts we need.
I hope this was helpful! Enjoy that homemade broth now!
