Chicken stock aka bone broth for healthy gut and skin

You can boil the bones up to 12 hours for maximum nutrition in a pot like this. Or use a pressure cooker for 2 hours for a speedier option following manufacturer’s instructions. Photo by Sue Foll

For a really nutritious stock aka bone broth, you need to boil the bones so long that they crumble between your fingers when you pick them up and the minerals seep out into the liquid. This stock is super nutritious and gets minerals into you from the chicken bones - eg calcium, magnesium, potassium which are needed to keep YOUR bones and teeth strong and healthy. If you boil your pot long enough, collagen should be released from the chicken’s cartilage into your stock too. You’ll know by if your stock contains this by how jelly-like the mixture gets when it has cooled down. The collagen from stock is good for maintaining the health of your gut lining AND all the skin on the outside of your body. A cup of warm chicken stock with a pinch of sea salt is also the first port of call for anybody feeling unwell. It is easy to digest and replaces minerals people lose in their sweat when having a high temperature, and in the stool if suffering from loose stools or diarrhoea. And it tastes a LOT better than Diorolyte!

Ingredients

The carcass and bones of a roasted chicken

2 litres of water

1 carrot

1 celery stick

1 onion 

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar

Instructions

Take the leftover carcass of a roast chicken, pick any remaining meat off it (you can save this for later for stir fries etc), and put the carcass and bones from the legs and wings, plus any skin and cartilage into a saucepan and cover with water.

Add one carrot, a stick of celery broken in two and a peeled onion or a couple of spring onions whole, and if you have them 2 bay leaves, and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (this calms down that meaty smell permeating your whole household as it cooks!)

Bring the water to the boil, then turn the heat to a gentle simmer and place a lid slightly skewed on top, so it’s not air tight and some steam can come out if needed.

Now leave the broth/stock to boil for between 2 and 12 hours. Yes 12 hours! The most nutritious stock/broth will develop if you leave it a very long time. You want the bones to literally crumble between two fingers - indicating that the minerals have seeped out of the bones into the liquid.

Take off the heat and let the saucepan cool down, then sieve the contents out, and pour the clear liquid into containers and store in the freezer for as and when needed. Or pour into a glass contained in your fridge where it keeps fresh for about one week.

The liquid should be like jelly when it cools down. This is a good sign and means lots of collagen from the cartilage has dissolved into the water too.