Bone broth is the term that some these days give to chicken stock...bones and stuff simmered a long time. I think some today are just learning how delicious chicken broth or stock really is.
As for "flavors?" what ever you choose....ginger and star anise...garlic, onions basil and parsley stems...whatever floats your boat.

Depending on how much you are making at once. The larger the quantity the more general the flavor profile.

That said I made chili oil last year. The recipe called for steeping a bunch of somewhat unfamiliar spices in oil before the chilies were added. I enjoyed the aromatic spiced oil so much I used a similar mix to flavor a stock last year.

Which reminds me I am getting a cold and I have 5 bags of chicken carcasses in my freezer....

http://thewoksoflife.com/2015/08/how-to-make-chili-oil/

I also think it depends on how much you are planning to make. If it's a lot, then I'd make whatever you are most likely to use. If you have a specific recipe in mind, though, and need a specific stock, then I'd make that.

The Asian one sounds intriguing, what would you make with that?

Annie

Asian chicken soup.....wink!

LOL! ;) When I was a kid we went to Trader Vic's (Polynesian and Chinese food) for a family celebration. My grandmother was confused by the menu. The captain said, "Don't worry, ma'am. You'll like the kreplach soup, yes?" Won ton soup, chicken soup with kreplach, not a big difference. :)

Yes, there's a spectrum, rather than a dichotomy. So, for me the difference is that stock is what you use to make soup, stew, sauce, etc., and is meant to be a concentration of the protein. Bone broth is more about extracting the minerals from the bones, and really promoting the collagen from the cartilage, rather than relying on meatiness. There are bones and meat in both, but in different concentrations. Dishes can be built on this kind of bone broth, but it is meant to be much more in the forefront than stock.

I'm beginning to lean toward the Asian one.

In reality, I'm trying to clear out the lumpy stuff in the freezer. :) And it would be nice to eat, of course.

I've posted this before, but I use only bay leaf for my chicken 'bone broth', that is, when I'm using plain raw chicken bones. When I use the bones from a roasted, seasoned bird, I don't add anything.

Thanks, Carol!

I just made both beef bone broth and chicken bone broth. In both cases the bones are simmered in water for at least a day - with a tablespoon or two of vinegar added to help soften the bones; and then the vegetables are added - mine are usually onion, celery and carrots. Then this is cooked until mush... chicken one day more and beef and other hard bones for several days. Then all is strained, jarred and, in my case, frozen for future reference.

While bone broth can be used as a base for other dishes, it is considered a 'health drink'. I usually drink it when I'm sick and can't eat anything else, but others drink it daily to help with bone/joint issues.

I also make broths as a bases for other dishes, but they don't take nearly as much time or effort a true Bone Broth.

Thanks, Kate!

Bones and vegetables, spices and maybe a lemon....simmered all day and maybe all night too.....that's how I make chicken broth.
Ever hear any reference to "bone broth" before say 2010?
It's simply what good cooks have made for generations. Bone broth, chicken broth beef stock or broth. Any cook knows the longer you cook your stock the better it gets. My great grand mother kept a pot at the back of her coal stove, added it to it constantly. I don';t remember her ever serving what was in that pot, but likely it went into gravy and stews. She owned a boarding house and always had a ginger cat named Tanglefoot.

This week Perdue chicken leg quarters, $0.49 a lb.

I bought a ton. It felt like I was stealing at that price.

Lots of bones to make stock.

dcarch

dcarch, 10 pound bags of leg quarters were on sale here too for 45 cents a pound. I bought a couple of bags to make dog food. Since we raise chickens to eat, I seldom eat the commercial stuff, but I'll happily let the dogs eat that while I eat our home grown, organically fed and sustainable raised pasture fed chicken!

We'll be slaughtering a couple dozen this week some time, so I'll have necks, back, feet, giblets. Those will all go into the Nesco with onions, carrots, celery, bay leaf, some black peppercorns and salt, whatever else suits me from the herb garden. It'll get cooked for at least 24 hours, maybe longer, and then I can it in quarts to use for soups or gravy some time later. Usually by the end of the cooking period the bones are soft enough to "squish" between my fingers, so I figure I've gotten all the goodness out of them by then. The lids just say "Chx" though, with a date in black sharpie. I guess I'm not modern enough to call it "bone broth". (grin)

Annie

I never put any vegetables in my chicken broth. I want the full flavor of the chicken, not vegetables. For beef, it is only onion for flavor, of course salt and pepper is used. That is the way my family always fixed it and I do too. All I use my chicken broth for is for Chicken and Noodles and only flavored with salt and pepper. I usually use my crock pot for the broth.

Sue

I've made chicken bone broth in either my stock pot or in the slow cooker. Both ways work for me. Sometimes I roast the bones, but since most of the bones came from earlier meals, usually I don't bother. If I get the chance, one of the local pastured poultry places sells the feet - I add in for the healthy collagen. Veggies - sometimes I add in miripoix from a few onions, carrots or celery, but not much. I want to retain versatility in my future use of this stock! I do add 2-3 tablespoons of vinegar, to bring out nutrients from the bones and joints .. this amount does not usually affect flavor in my hands - I admit I do like sour over most other flavor profiles, anyway. I do not add salt at all at this stage.

Nice story, Linda. You're right about the newness of "bone broth", but it's apt. This is something that is most often used straight, rather than as an ingredient for other dishes or a soup base, unlike the bone stock you describe. I've heard "bone stock" as long as I can remember to refer to stock made from bones and kitchen scraps rather than meat stock made from meaty pieces (usually chicken spines, beef knuckles and the like) and giblets with whole vegetables. Which is different from meat broth, which is a clear finished soup made of the same things, but concentrated, seasoned and served straight. The current passion for bone broth is also served straight, hence the "broth".

Artemis, thanks for the recommendations and advice. I think if I go with the Asian flavor, I'll put some lemon in it. I have too many lemons on my tree, anyway. That should be acid enough, don't you think? The store where I shop usually has feet, and I was going to get some to bolster the broth. Glad to know it's a good idea. I can get some lemongrass too. :)

Pillog, lemon would work fine.

Forgot to mention I usually use lemon or lime juice, not vinegar. My roasted birds are generally seasoned w/ lemon or lime juice anyway.

It is wonderful to read this healthy cooking information. Unfortunately I am limited as to the time available to cook because I am faced with macular troubles with my eyes and it has been impossible for me to find any restaurants that are interested in "how much sodium" and any other concerns about the healthful ingredients that are in food.. Can't afford a cook for sure. I am trying to get helpful tools to work with. Hopefully someday someone with money will invest in something like this. Barb

Barb, do you mean bone stock? You can buy it ready to eat. Google it. Some are small meal service companies delivering fresh, which may be harder to find in your area, but there are also canned and frozen ones, though I can't vouch for the sodium contents.

Of all things, this is the easiest to make at home. Do you have a slow cooker or Instant Pot? Save up your chicken bones, and/or buy necks, feet, etc., from the butcher. Roast them if you like, then dump in cooker with some water, a dash of acid and some vegetable peels.

If you get tired of the straight, concentrated broth, you can thin it down with a bit of water, and make a soup using whatever scraps and trimmings you have. Either in the slow cooker for a long time, or boiled up on the stove. Very economical and you're in total control of what goes in it.

And then there's boullion, consomme and madrillene....as well as broth.

Well, see what you started? I have a Nesco roaster full of backs and necks on the counter, where it will simmer all night.

Barb, plllog is right, broth is easy and cheap. If you have a crockpot it'll work very well, you can cook it for several hours until it tastes "right". My chicken stock has onion, carrot, celery, a bay leaf, black pepper corns and a sprinkle of salt. I don't even peel the onion, just slice it into wedges and toss it in. I cook it for about 24 hours, then I can it because I make it by the gallon. It freezes well, though, and is handy to have for soup and/or gravy.

I save chicken backs, necks, wing tips, the bones from a roasted chicken, whatever, and put them into a freezer bag. I just add to the bag as bones become available and when it's full, I make stock. I do the same with vegetables, freezing whatever is becoming wilted, the ends of carrots and celery, whatever, and I dump those into the pot too. Things that are "throw away" become stock with some water and time.

Annie

I love to make bone broths aka stocks. Chicken is my favorite. I save and freeze cooked and raw bones, skin, onion and carrot peels, celery trimmings, etc. I thaw and save the juice then toss the bones and veggies with a little olive oil and roast in the oven until golden then plop in either a large kettle or slow cooker (depending on volume). I add the juice and zest from one or two lemons and simmer away. I don't bring it to a rolling boil because that seems to breakdown the gelatin from the bones. Low and slow seems to make the best stock. Made a chicken stock last week that simmered for 36 hours. Yum! I usually wait until cool weather and put the kettle on the woodstove.

I followed the recipe. It made a lovely stock. More of what I'd call a stock than a broth. It smelled like feet. I didn't like the flavor at all. A friend who was here while I was straining it liked it. I jarred it up and sent it home with her. :(

My guess is that it would have been a lot better if I'd made it as a stock with just water to begin with and tried flavoring it later, but the recipe was so tempting I didn't use my fundamental knowledge about the right way to do things. Sigh. Not a big loss. It will be consumed.

I'm making it in my Instant Pot pressure cooker. It's not quite as good as the one simmered over a few hours, but it does the job!

"Smelled like feet?"...Really?? Did you wash the feet first? If you make it with wings, does it smell like arm pits?
Can't imagine how chicken feet smell different than chicken wings and chicken bone scraps. But to each his own.

I have a plastic container in the freezer that I like to put the carrot peeling and ends, onion ends, celery trimmings, and the skin when I cook chicken parts. If I make chicken wings the tips go in there also. When I get enough, I toss in a saucepan frozen, cover with water, and simmer until??? I strain and put in frig to chill. When the fat is solid, I pull it off the top and discard. I put up in 1 cup and 1/2 cup freezer containers. I always have stock for recipes that way. It doesn't seem to matter how much of each one. Oh yeah, if I have parsley I bought that might go bad before I use it, that goes in the freezer also. If I have a whole chicken of bones left, I go ahead and use that with the freezer stuff.

The container in the freezer is labeled "chicken stock garbage" lol!

ETA: It had to be something other than the chicken to smell like feet!

FWIW, I save up chicken bones and pressure cook on high for 5 minutes then simmer several hours. Nothing added. Seems to really extract the collagen. I then strain out all but the little bits of meat and freeze it to use it on my elderly cats’ food to help with joint health.

ROTFL Linda!

The chicken feet were beautifully prepped by the butcher, perfectly clean with no membrane, and quite dainty. :)

Yeah, Sherry, it was the recipe. Actually more of a musty smell than anything--old socks?--but the kids say, "Smells like feet." I'm guessing it was the ginger.

MizLizzie, thanks for the tip! I think I'll try that next time since I'm using a multi-cooker. A bit of pressure cooking before slow cooking is a natural!

Pillog, lol! I made this for my MIL because she was getting down from Chemo and wouldn't eat. She kept telling my husband it was hot even after it was mostly ice cubes!

https://www.rebeccakatz.com/magic-mineral-broth/

BTW: It tasted pretty good to me even if I did have to run all over town looking for the kombu'! Which is a seaweed evidently. Finally found it at a Oriental grocery. Me pointing at recipe and the owner going, oh yeah, here it is!

Reminds me of someone that goes file', what is file'? It all in what you are used to cooking.

Thanks, Sherry. That sounds good! Kombu is no issue here. I think I even have some, if it didn't all get used up. Right now I'm in a clearing out mode, but I'll definitely try it come Winter.

Linda, you may not have meant to be humorous, but did give me my laugh for the day. Tks.

I don't know where that "bone broth" term came from. It sounds freaky to me. Always been called chicken broth or chicken stock, and that is what I am sticking with. :-/

Chess, maybe this will help? And for the record, I have used bones with marrow and it did not taste disgusting. Yes there IS fat in it, and what does fat add in any dish? Flavor. Can't believe he said that. *scratches head*

Dandyrandy...I always mean to be humorous...

Beth, I clear-off all the beef and chicken fat and save it for cooking. Fat is fat, and the added flavor, when a fat is needed in cooking, is fantastic. Mushrooms sautéed in marrow (or beef) fat are out-of-this-world delicious,

asian chicken soup: chicken simmer for a while skim off scum the add fresh ginger, shitake mushroom and dried "chinese red dates"( dried jujube fruit) it a soup traditionally serve to new mothers. I'll have it anytime, it warms you to the bone. search the web for chinese new mother soup

beth09, thanks. From the article:

Three to five years ago, because of the wellness and paleo trends, stock started being called bone broth. It really short-circuited my brain."

Yup. It's stock. Someone just wanted to start another trendy name thing.

We've had lots of discussions about the difference between stock and broth (not much, but "stock" usually refers to something used as an ingredient and broth is used to mean a finished rich plain soup).

We also talked about why "bone" up topic. Some are made with mostly bones and are cooked a very long time to get the minerals out of the bones. Others are made with mostly meat or meaty bones and are cooked for less time, until the meat is all cooked out and what bones there are have yielded flavor but aren't soft and/or friable unless they're tiny. A third option is made with mostly bones and vegetables, but not cooked long enough to really pull all the minerals out of the bones.

The first one is "bone" because it's about the bones. And often broth because it's meant to be consumed straight as soup.