Recipe for Bone Broth
This Labour Day weekend, why not make some nourishing bone broth for your dogs? Homemade bone broth is an easy and inexpensive recipe to make, even for a novice cook. Bone broth is full of natural glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate and hyaluronic acid, all the important nutrients which helps support the tendons and ligaments. It also contains loads of the amino acid glycine, which helps in the detoxification of the liver.
We normally prepare a big pot of bone broth on the weekends, leave it to simmer in the slow cooker and portion out to small serving sizes for storage in the freezer. Bone broth makes a great topping to your dog’s meals and can be diluted and mixed with water to encourage your dog to drink more. It makes a nourishing soup when your dog is not eating well or recovering from an illness (just as we all love a hot bowl of chicken soup when we are sick).
Bone broth is especially good for senior pets who needs extra nourishment and may have poorer appetites.
Ingredients:
2-3 kg of bones from beef, chicken or duck
2-3 tablespoons of organic raw apple cider vinegar
Finely chopped celery and broccoli
Water
- Place the bones in a slow cooker. You can use any bones but we like to use a combination of beef marrow bones and chicken or duck wings, feet, joints and thighs.
- Add water to cover the bones by about 2 inches. Add in 2-3 tablespoons of organic raw apple cider vinegar. This is an important step as the acid in the vinegar will help to draw out all the minerals from the bones. We use Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar as it is unfiltered and unpasteurized.
- Set the slow cooker on high for 2 hours. After that, turn down to low and leave it to simmer for at least 24 hours.
- After 24 hours, sieve the stock and discard the bones. While the stock is still warm, add in the finely chopped celery and broccoli, or substitute with other vegetables. Please note: Do not feed the cooked bones to your pet.
- Leave the pot to cool down before placing in the fridge overnight.
- The next day, you will find a yellow layer on the top (this is where the fat has solidified). Discard this layer and the resulting mixture is a gelatin like consistency full of nourishing goodness.
- You can store the broth in the fridge for up to 5 days or portion to smaller sizes for longer storage in the freezer.
Note: You can prepare bone broth over the stove on very low heat but this means that you will need to keep it boiling over the stove for 24 hours.
Bone appetit!
Paws Fur Life, canine massage & nutrition. A healthy dog is a happy dog
