Making homemade bone broth is a crucial technique a Traditional Cook must master. Ideally, it is made at least once a week. Since quality bones are expensive, is pork broth an option? Most people have never considered it. Quality pastured pork at affordable prices is widely available in many communities. Let’s examine this question below.
Health Requires Lots of Bone Broth – Why Not Pork?
I make a large pot of stock once or twice every week. Our family flies through quarts of it so quickly at mealtimes! A ready supply of gelatin and mineral rich broth in the freezer is also important when illness strikes. This nutrient rich food is a key player for rapid recovery without meds. This is especially true when a fever is involved.
Commercial Broth vs Homemade Broth
Getting sick and realizing there is no homemade bone broth is a devastating feeling, I can assure you! Simply running out to the store to pick up some canned soup or broth in a carton is not going to solve the problem. These industrially produced products even if organic are just water and MSG with little to no nutrient value and certainly no gelatin!
Even the properly made commercial bone broths available in recent years are not comparable to homemade. They are all watered down (every single brand I’ve tested). What’s worse, they are usually packaged in toxic plastic or plastic lined tetrapaks. The broth is boiling hot when it is poured into the containers if the product is shelf stable. Try it yourself. Put them in the refrigerator. They don’t gel like broth made at home does. The only brand worth buying is Epic bone broth in glass jars, but unfortunately it is still watered down.
Making your own broth has no substitute!
There is nothing worse than a tummy bug striking your children and knowing that a pot of gelatin rich stock that will halt the illness in its tracks is a full 24-48 hours away. Unless, of course, you can quickly source the right kind of fishheads, then a pot of stock can be ready in as little as 4 hours.
Pork Broth More Affordable than Most
With plenty of stock on hand for whatever your cooking or wellness needs might be, the next question is how to source quality bones at a price that is within a typical family’s food budget.
The highest quality pastured pork bones for making pork stock tend to cost between one half and three quarters as much as grassfed beef bones or pastured chicken in my experience, particularly if you source an entire hog.
Some might question how pork bones could make good pork broth given the fattiness of the meat. Culinary purists believe that soups and sauces made with fatty stock do not yield the best results. This problem is easily remedied by chilling pork stock in the refrigerator which allows the congealed pork fat to be removed from the top of the container of stock with a spoon.
If you’ve never tried pork broth or pork stock before, why don’t you give it a try?  Here is a very simple and basic pork broth recipe to get you going. It is inspired by the beautiful book Beyond Bacon, Paleo Recipes that Respect the Whole Hog, by Stacy Toth and Matthew McCarry.
How to Make Pork Broth (Pork Stock)
The recipe for pork stock below makes about 2 quarts. Try it with your next batch! I’m sure you’re going to love it!
Pork Broth Recipe
How to make pork broth that is a affordable, nutritious, and delicious alternative to other more expensive stocks made with pastured poultry or grassfed beef bones.
Ingredients
- 3 lbs pastured pork bones
- 1 Tbl apple cider vinegar raw and unfiltered, preferably organic
- ground peppercorns
- sea salt
Instructions
-
Put all of the bones in a stockpot and add enough filtered water to cover.
Cook on high until the water comes to a boil and scum rises to the top. Cook for 5 minutes.
Dump the entire pot of water and refill with fresh filtered water, enough to cover the bones. Mix in the apple cider vinegar and bring the water to a boil once again.
Carefully skim off any foam that comes to the top. It should be minimal given that the water with most of the scum was dumped in the previous step.
Reduce heat and simmer on low for 9-24 hours.
Remove the pot from the heat, strain and taste. Add salt and pepper as needed. Let cool and then refrigerate in one or more airtight containers.
Skim the lard off the top of the chilled pork broth the following day and refrigerate. Reserve this delicious fat high in Vitamin D for cooking. This article plus video provides more information on how to render lard.
Use the clarified pork stock as the base for soups and sauces the same as you would use chicken or beef stock.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
my original experience with pork stock was cooking a shoulder in the crock pot for 12 hours, the broth was so amazing, I couldn’t get rid of it! I found all kinds of soups to make with it, a totally different taste, but I love it, and now that we raise our own pigs, I make pork broth along with our beef, lamb and chicken. so yummy! pull meat from the bones, simmer brown beans (cooked) in the broth, throw in some sauerkraut, cooked pork and caramelized onions when it comes off the heat, grate a little cheese over and enjoy.
If I mix chicken and pork bones do I still need to dump the 1st water and what do you think about using the pressure cooker for stock?
I started making pork stock and broth last year when I bought a pastured hog. Also grassfed beef. I made chicken and turkey stock and broth too. Save the bones and freeze them until you have enough to make broth. So easy and so good for you.
When my neighbor and friend butchers pigs, one is mine, I get all the extra bones, heads , organ meat, etc. for nothing cause no one else wants it. Cut all the meat off that I can then boil the bones and heads and make oodles of broth. Great soup stock. So much thrown away because people haven’t been raised to appreciate it. Same with cows and chickens.
I’m always learning new things and getting new ideas from your blog. I’ve never made pork stock, although I’ve recently been searching for a good pork supplier. I’ll give it a try once I find some good bones. What kind of soup would you make with pork broth? Maybe lentil or bean soup would be good?
I have taken to making a mixed bone stock with beef, pork and sometimes lamb bones, whatever I have. It makes a rich superior tasting stock – Asian cultures use pork stock all the time. I have not noticed that it’s more fatty because I do what you have recommended here – chilling the stock and then removing the fat (which I save and freeze and use later for cooking). Thanks for bringing up this tasty option :))
This is a great idea. I wish I had thought of doing this, especially when you don’t quite have enough left of one but do others. Because if you mix them, you will not get a distinctive taste from one in particular, like lamb for instance, so it could be used in most any dish. Love it. Will be doing this myself and feel rather stupid for not having thought of this 🙂
I have unsmoked pork hocks in my freezer from my half a pig. Can I use those?
You’ve had it stop the stomach bug?
Now that we have a pasture hog in the freezer I have been making pork broth. Makes the most divine potato/cheddar soup base. I have no fat to skim off the top of my broth. Our meat is incredibly lean.
I make my broth in a pressure cooker to save time. Takes about 2 hours and the bones are melted. Sarah, do you have any objection in using a pressure cooker? It cooks food in extra high heat. Does that create HCA since, like in your article about grilling, you said that high heat and pressure and duration create HCA? Thank you.
Please be ultra careful with pressure cookers!!! After using pressure cookers for years and years….I had one blow for no apparent reason and I ended up with over 30% of my body covered in 2nd and 3rd degree burns!!! What saved me was that I had some heavier clothes on.
I still make bone broth…usually pork…but now I use a pot on the stove or a roaster.
No more pressure cookers in my house.
I love my pressure cooker but this concerns me….. What kind did you have?
A pressure cooker has to be well maintained. The usual culprit is the rubber ring on the inside. Over the years it can dry out and crack. Make sure you examine your before using it. If in doubt replace it. We have used pressure cooking for generations and it is a great way to make a broth. If you are worried about using the stove I have a digital pressure cooker that sits on the counter. It can also be used to brown, steam and and as a slow cooker. It is much quieter and easy to program. The dog no longer goes nuts at the noise and I it goes to a warm cycle at the end.
Slow cooking is the best way to extract collagen from bones and to bring out the taste. Pressure cooking may destroy some nutrients and burn other proteins that makes it carcinogenic. Pork, beef and chicken bones (with skeletal muscles) soups are hope remedies used by old folks in the Philippines during cold season and fever and flu cause by “cold winds”, it warms the body and balance energy. Just make sure that those pork, beef or chickens are organically raised. In my case I am not a pork person but prefer chicken or beef.
Annnnd THIS is why I use All American pressure canner/cookers. No gaskets to fail, no cheap plastic parts to break.