My mother and my husband’s family are of Colombian heritage. (That’s Colombia, South America… not Columbia, South Carolina!👌🏻) A recipe that many from this culture have always enjoyed is caldo, a simple broth served along-side the “dry” dishes at their main meal of the day. Known to nourish and hydrate, it has never been part of my menu unless someone was showing signs of a cold. How silly of me…

Like so many people these days, I am trying to regain my health and making great strides by taking my food more seriously. One of the things I have researched and decided to incorporate into our regular diet is Bone Broth. Yes – the very thing so many cultures (like my mother’s and my husband’s) have believed in for centuries.

Bone broth differs from your typical soup or store bought broth in that bones are simmered along with vegetables and herbs over a long period of time to help extract all the nutrients and collagen from the bones. Most recipes encourage cooking for 12-24 hours (some more). Along with those nutritional benefits, longer cooking also extracts more flavor, making this broth wonderful by itself – not just for cooking something else.

I mostly followed this recipe by The Healthy Foodie to make broth this weekend, but used fresh herbs available in my little garden.  While I did begin cooking it using the slow cooker function on my InstantPot, when I noticed that the meat and marrow were still attached to the bone even after 16 hours of cooking, I decided to cut the time a bit by cooking it for an hour under pressure. Thankfully, this was as simple as changing the lid on the pot and changing the cooking function.

Along with the mason jars shown, I decided to follow a recommendation by Highfalutin’ Low Carb and freeze a few portions in mini loaf tins, making it easier to fit into a pot when it’s time to enjoy this broth later. Freezing them in a bag (flat in the freezer) is a great space saver but you may need to defrost it before using later if it doesn’t fit in your chosen pot/saucepan.

Deee-lish. I love it when “medicine” is this tasty! One last little note: it’s important to get bones from a healthy animal. Check your local markets and ask around. I was able to find grass-fed/grass-finished beef bones in the freezer section of a local nutrition market here in my small-ish town. If you have access to a Whole Foods, I’ve heard they have them, as well.