Homemade Bone Broth

Homemade Bone Broth is a delicious paleo broth recipe you can prepare in a slow cooker! Add onion, garlic, thyme, and lemon for an incredible flavor! Drink it by itself or add it to other recipes! This broth is so comforting, it feels like a warm hug! {Paleo}

Comforting, inviting, and versatile, Homemade Bone Broth is the backbone of several of our family’s recipes. Our liquid gold, if you will. Not only do we drink it by itself, but we also add it to soups and stews, side dishes, and our sipping routine when we feel under the weather. But I confess, it wasn’t always that way. At least, not for me. I didn’t love homemade bone broth in the beginning. “Give me canned broth or give me…!” Well, maybe not death, but you get the idea.

Our girls needed to drink it on the regular, though, so it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Which meant that I constantly tinkered with the recipe to explore a number of flavor combinations in the hopes I’d find something that suited my palate. But here’s the thing. I was mixed up. I kept tinkering with the broth, not realizing that the base recipe for it, a baked chicken, was where I needed to allocate my time.

Let me explain: 

We use the leftover chicken bones from a baked chicken to make our Homemade Bone Broth. By putting more time and effort into a delicious, flavorful baked chicken, we created a much tastier bone broth recipe.

In case you’re wondering…

…the base recipe for this Homemade Bone Broth is our Lemon Baked Chicken recipe. It’s made with fresh:

• Onion
• Garlic
• Lemon
• Thyme sprigs

I’m salivating just thinking about it! Once the chicken is baked, we transfer the bones to a slow cooker and submerge them in water to make this broth recipe.

We then add more fresh garlic, onion wedges, lemon slices, and thyme springs to the slow cooker. The end result is a hearty flavor with an aroma that permeates every wall in your home. If only Smell-O-Vision were a real thing.

If you are on the fence about making your own Homemade Bone Broth, I say hop off, grab a slow cooker, and give it a whirl. Baking a whole chicken first and then turning the leftovers into a broth is easier than it sounds!

Homemade Bone Broth ingredients

Below are the ingredients to make your own Homemade Bone Broth recipe. Customize the mix-ins to create the flavor you want.

• Chicken bones. You can definitely go to the meat counter at your local grocer and ask for chicken bones. However, another way to make this recipe is to make Lemon Baked Chicken first and then use the bones from that recipe here. The flavor is undeniably good!
• Water. How much water you add will depend on the size of your slow cooker. The key is to add enough so as to submerge the bones and carcass.
• Sea salt. I add several pinches of salt to the slow cooker. But I don’t overdo it. Since I usually add my broth to several other recipes, I hold off on adding more salt until I’m making those other recipes.
• Mix-ins. A handful of onions (I use red and white), two sliced lemons (I don’t bother to remove the rind), several sprigs of fresh thyme, a few whole garlic cloves. Additionally, if you want to use other spices, veggies, herbs, or seasonings then go for it! And if you want to use the baked onions, garlic, lemon, and thyme from your Lemon Baked Chicken in this recipe, that will also work!

How to make Homemade Bone Broth

Below are the steps to create your own savory bone broth!

1. Place chicken bones in a slow cooker and pour enough water to submerge as many of the bones as possible. Add the garlic cloves, thyme sprigs, lemon slices, onions, and sea salt. Cook on low heat for about 24 hours. Let cool.
2. Refrigerate in glass jars for about 3-4 days. Then store in freezer-safe jars in the freezer for up to six months.

NOTE: If you freeze the broth, then please remember to leave space at the top of the jar for expansion.

Best practices

• Keep it neutral to use in other recipes. When making a large batch of this broth to use in other recipes, keep the flavors simple. This makes it easier to customize for other recipes you eventually make.
• Work with fresh ingredients. I’ve added onion salt or garlic powder and dried herbs to the slow cooker before, and it will do (I’m a huge fan of those ingredients). But there is nothing quite like fresh herbs, garlic, lemons, and onions in Homemade Bone Broth. The water absorbs their flavors for a more accurate and tasty result.
• Transfer the drippings from a baked chicken. I add olive oil to may baked chicken, which then creates a delicious glaze. Then when I make the bone broth, I transfer some of that glaze to the slow cooker for added flavor. It’s delicious! I have also experimented with transferring some of the baked onion, garlic, lemon, and thyme from the chicken to this broth recipe. It’s delicious and provides a hearty flavor.

The recipe that keeps on giving!

If you’d like to add this broth to soups and stews, then here are recipes to try!

• Paleo White Chicken Chili
• Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
• Paleo Zuppa Toscana
• Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Soup
• Paleo Chicken Fajita Soup
• Dairy-Free Creamy Vegetable Soup

Enjoy, friends! Stay safe, be well, and take care! I’m glad you’re here. ❤️

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