Instant Pot Bone Broth

Summer isn’t really when you think of making soups and stews, but it is a great time to stock up on bone broth for winter. I use bone broth for any liquid called for in a recipe…..well, except desserts, of course….bison flavored cake? - um, no. On average, we go through about 2-3 quarts of bone broth a week, so stocking up is a must. When you make broth in an Instant Pot or a Crock Pot, the kitchen stays cool. I used to cook my broth in the crock pot for at least 24 hours(which actually works great), and my family wanted to die because of the smell. When Brad asked me to move the bone-making razzmatazz to the garage, I was not happy - what a pain, so....enter the Instant Pot. My Instant Pot is my favorite kitchen appliance (okay, so it's tied with my immersion blender), but I was skeptical about using the Instant Pot for bone broth initially - it just seemed way too easy and like it couldn’t be as good as the long-term cooking option. But my vision of the "crock pot in the garage" looked like this: I take it to the garage to cook, I forget about it and after two days the water is cooked so far down that I have to add water and keep cooking, I forget again but this time the water cooks all the way out, I ruin the crockpot and have to go to Costco and get another one. Rinse, repeat! So……I tried the Instant Pot - and it is awesome. The bones seem to break down just as well in the I.P., AND IT’S DONE IN NO TIME!! So - no garage bone broth for me (or multiple new crock pot purchases per year - you think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Really!!). This process is an amazing no-brainer and it allows me to keep the broth coming - because being out of bone broth is a minor emergency in my world - and I'm not dramatic at all.

The Method :

Use 1 pack of frozen bones/shanks - I only use defrosted bones if I got them out meaning to make broth right away, but forgot about them until they were defrosted. Our Shanks/Osso Bucco (bisonand beef), a pack of which are pictured above, have lots of meat on them. Our Soup Bonesare a combination of neck bones with meat, knuckle bones, and marrow bones. We have also just started selling marrow bones, with no meat, as an add-on item (contact us to add these to an existing order - each bone is approximately 1.5 lbs @ $7.99/lb. )

Add the bones and about 2 Tablespoons of Sea Salt to your Instant Pot and cover with about 10-12 cups of water. You may want to adjust the amount of salt and water after you’ve made some this way and see what you like.

Cook on high pressure for 3 hours …..some people just cook for 1 hour, but I like to go longer. Let the pressure come down on its own . At that point you can open the top. I like starting mine at night and letting it lose pressure and even cool down on its own so that in the morning I can open the I.P. with no smell (my family appreciates that, and so will yours!).

Pour the contents through a colander, catching the broth in a big bowl, then make sure you get all of the marrow out of the bones and dump it into the broth.

Use your immersion blender to blend it all up . I used to strain everything through cheesecloth, and if you want your broth to be clear then go ahead and do that. It takes so much more time, and I don’t care if my broth has little bits in it. Since I’m using it for stews, soups, braising vegetables, and adding to other things in recipes I figure it doesn’t really matter.

Pour into jars or containers, using a big measuring cup (or whatever). If freezing in jars, be sure to leave lots of head space, like below the shoulders of the jar, or they can break when freezing which really stinks, and is counter - productive. I know it’s not great - THEY say - to freeze in plastic containers, but sometimes I do. I need to find something that won’t crack and that has a large opening so that I don’t have to wait for my containers to thaw before using them….I’m sort of last minute sometimes and forget to take it out of the freezer.

I love the shanks best because there is so much meat on them. After cooking, I save and freeze the meat until I have enough to make enchiladas. The above is a quart container and the meat from one pack of shanks gave me just over 1/2 quart of meat. Also….FYI - beef broth is wonderful, but bison broth is amazing….absolutely the best. It is different in that it doesn’t coagulate like beef, which some people don't prefer, but I’m okay with it.

Enjoy! I always keep a quart of broth in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. It goes so fast during the winter/fall (well, really all the rest of the year except summer - and even some days in summer that feel like winter-lite; welcome to Montana), that I make it a lot.