When the colds or weird viruses are going around, drink one to two cups of Medicine Broth a day. I like to start my day with a warm cup of Medicine Broth and then drink another cup in the afternoon as a pick-me-up.
We all know about soup stock or chicken broth that you can purchase at the store or make yourself. There is soup broth or stock and then there is…
Medicine Broth
Medicine Broth is filled with organic bones, mineral rich vegetables, digestive supporting spices and healing herbs. Making Medicine Broth is similar to making soup stock or bone broth, the difference is the addition of herbs and seaweed.
This is a recipe we have been making for decades in our house. If someone starts to not feel well, we go back to basics, Medicine Broth for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You don’t have to not feel well to drink it though, it is a wonderful medicinal broth that you can drink anytime. You can make a big batch and store it in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Medicine Broth is full of readily available nutrition that the body doesn’t have to spend a lot of effort to harness. Easy to access nutrition means that instead of spending so much energy to digest food, your vitality can be focused on restoring tissue, building immunity or fighting off sickness.
Bones
Collagen, gelatin and protein rich bones made into broth provide deep, easy to digest nutrition.
If purchasing chicken or turkey bones from the store, ask the butcher to cut the leg bones in half so that the marrow is exposed and will easily infuse into your broth.
You can use leg, back, neck, feet and knuckle bones from turkey, chicken and duck.
The primary animal bones that I use for Medicine Broth are chicken, turkey, duck and beef. Other possibilities are ham hocks, pork neck bones, lamb bones, beef shanks and oxtail.
You can purchase these bones from the butcher and then put them straight into your pot for making Medicine Broth.
The other think you can do is use the bones from any meat you eat. You can use bones after the meat has been cooked and eaten off the bones.
Bones that are cooked tend to have a little more flavor. After you eat a turkey, chicken or duck, use the entire carcass for your Medicine Broth.
Also, bones that you bring home from the butcher can be roasted to add more flavor to the broth. The bones need to be from grass fed animals or animals raised without antibiotics and chemicals.
When we make broth from the bones, we receive the gift of protein, collagen and gelatin from the animal bones as raw material to create healthy cells within our own body. This nutrition is dense and bone broth is a restorative food.
Click here to listen to Sally Fallon lay it down about bone broth!
If you would like a vegetarian version, you can follow the recipe and leave out the bones.
Acidic Addition
An acidic ingredient, like wine, apple cider vinegar or lemon, acts like a solvent, helping to break down protein, collagen and pull minerals from the bones into the broth.
Vegetables and Vegetable Scraps
Save your veggie scraps in the freezer until you are ready to make Medicine Broth. Onion peels, garlic peels, leek tops, parsley stems, carrot tops… Store them in a bag in the freezer and add them along with some fresh vegetables to your broth. Use a variety of vegetables for your broth. Make sure some of those root vegetables find their way into the pot, things like turnip, rutabaga, celery root, carrot or parsnip.
Sea Vegetables
Loaded with vitamins and minerals, sea vegetables are the perfect addition to your Medicine Broth. Pick the kind you like, wakame and kombu are my favorite. Seaweed contains protein, a broad range of vitamins and minerals including iron and calcium. It’s known to be a powerful antioxidant and beneficial pre-biotic that supports gut health and immunity.
Mushrooms
If you can find fresh maitake or shiitake mushrooms, add an extra layer of nutrition and immune boosting support.
Herbs and Spices
Adding more minerals, immune building benefits and hundreds of effects that the herbs have in the body, these are some of the herbs that can be added to your Medicine Broth: astragalus, bay leaf, burdock root, calendula blossoms, codonopsis, ginger, reishi, garlic, rosemary, sage, star anise pods, thyme, turmeric.
Fresh Herb Garnish
Garnish with parsley, arugula or cilantro.
Cooking Pot
As far as what you cook it in, that is also personal preference. For years I cooked my bone broths overnight for 8 to 12 hours. Have you ever been woken up in the night from bone both aroma wafting through your house? I have a student, her partner just couldn’t take it anymore and said no more bone broth cooking in their house.
Well, those days are over. For whatever reason, it only took me a couple decades, but I finally discovered the pressure cooker. 3 years ago I purchases a Fagor one pot with a pressure cooker setting and life has never been the same. Excellent bone broth in 4 hours.
Wow, when I made my first batch in 4 hours, I felt part of me saying, “Hey, we have done it the other way for so long, not sure if we like this new-fangled method…”. Hahaha! No more bone broth smell in the middle of the night, it truly was a game changer.
I am giving a base line recipe here for the Medicine Broth. The truth is though, I don’t think I have ever made a broth the same way twice. Use the bones you can find, change up the veggies and herbs depending on the season and what you have available.
This isn’t an exact science. Once you have your bones, see what else you feel drawn to adding. Once you start adding things like reishi and burdock, the flavor can become a little bitter. I just wanted to say one more time, this isn’t the stock that I use for making soups. This is a Medicine Broth, meant to be taken on its own. We drink this one warm cup at a time as a nourishing medicinal food.
If you are ready to take your herbal kitchen to the next level, you can join me at My Herbal Kitchen.
Medicine Broth
Ingredients
- 1 - 1.5 gallons water
- 1 whole organic chicken, duck or turkey carcass (after you have baked the bird and eaten most of the meat) break the bones up and put in the neck and feet of the bird if you have it
- OR use at least two cups of bones purchased from the butcher (Please see section in this blog where I talk more about bone choices)
- Juice of 1 lemon or ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 yellow or red onion with skin still on
- 1 whole garlic bulb with skin still on
- 2 cups vegetable scraps (if you have some saved)
- 2 cups vegetables (celery, fennel root, leek…)
- 1 cup root vegetables (rutabaga, celery root, parsnip, turnip, carrot, potato…)
- 1/4 cup fresh shitake mushrooms (optional)
- 2 tbsp fresh or dried rosemary
- 4 slices reishi mushroom
- 4 inch piece of sea vegetable (kombu, wakame or your favorite sea vegetable)
- 5 sticks astragalus
- 3 inch piece of burdock
- 2 star anise pods
- 1/4 cup fresh ginger
Instructions
- Choose your bones, decide if you want to roast them or not
- Put everything into the pot
- As far as how long you cook everything, it depends onthe cooking pot. With a slow cooker I let it all simmer on low for 12 hours.Now I use a One Pot and cook for 4 hours on the pressure cooker setting
- Strain and remove everything from the broth
- Let broth cool and strain any fat off the top. You can save this fat and use it to cook with later
- Store in fridge for one week or freeze for up to 3months
I love this. It will take me some time to read it all but I will. Thank You so much.
Thanks so much Kami, for your generous sharing of this recipe! I made it once in my 8 qt instant pot & it filled it right to the max line. After squeezing as much broth as possible out with cheesecloth in a colander over a large pot, it produced 7 qts of surprisingly delicious broth.
I am so glad you like it!
Can I use venison bones?
I have made bone broth from venison for a number of years. I make it in a pressure cooker now, but like Kami, when I first started making it, I boiled it on the stove for days at a time. Much better now!
Hi Kami I’m new to the instant pot… do you put it on high or low for 4 hours? Not sure if you can overcook nutrients
I use a One Pot and cook for 4 hours on the pressure cooker setting
You use fresh ginger, correct? Seems like a quarter cup of the dried powdered root would be a lot! Thank you!!
Yes, fresh ginger. Dried ginger is too heating for many people and that would be way too much
Thank you Kami! I love these take care of yourself recipes….I just don’t trust the medical establishment so much anymore.
thank you for sharing this. I’m hungry now
haha! #drinkup
In my experience, roasting uncooked bones prior to simmering not only adds a depth of flavor, but it helps with the sometimes unpleasant smell. Roasted root vegetables add flavor depth, as well
For sure, roasted bones add better flavor, i talk about that in the section on bones.
Sounds amazing! One thing: don’t discard that fat (or leave it in the broth). That’s some good nourishment in its own right and has absorbed some of the medicine. You can use it to cook with if you strain it off.
I love how you make the distinction of this being a medicine broth! Thanks for sharing 🙏💚
Wonderful, thank you Kami
perfect timing, we just put 8 chickens in the freezer,
I guess 1 is coming back out hahaha
So perfect for these times Kami. Thank you so much!!!! Can’t wait to give it a try!