How the French art of remouillage makes the most of your real food budget by saving money making bone broth or stock.
The Culinary Arts Dictionary defines the French word remouillage as a weak stock made by resimmering bones that have been used to make bone broth once already.
Indeed, this is exactly what remouillage is: a rewetting or remoistening of soup bones that have already served their purpose with a previous batch of bone broth or stock (not to be confused with meat stock).
It is a frugal approach to using broth bones much like boiling meat is the thiftiest way to cook it on a tight budget.
Despite the fact that my Father’s side of the family is French, I only started practicing remouillage well into the second decade of my traditional foods journey.
Folks had mentioned to me in the past that they “reused soup bones”. At first, this approach seemed to be an example of frugality run amok.
If you’ve simmered bones once, how could resimmering them possibly achieve anything close to the delectable flavor and superior nutrition of first batch?
As it turns out, there is always something new to learn with Traditional Cooking!
Broth from Reused Bones
The second batch of stock made from the same soup bones is definitely weaker than the first.
This is the case even when adding fresh carrots, celery, onions, and a bay leaf or two. Note that it is not advisable to reuse the vegetables from the first batch of stock.
However, you can easily compensate for this by simply boiling the remouillage down until the flavor and color is roughly comparable with the first batch.
The final result yields less stock – about half in my experience. The upside is that you will have more thoroughly made use of your investment in quality soup bones!
What Type of Bones Work for Remouillage?
What types of bones work best when making remouillage?
I’ve used all types of poultry (including chicken feet) and beef bones. All have worked very well and produced excellent results.
I am not in favor of using fish heads for stock more than once. The heads pretty much disintegrate after the first batch, and fish heads are so cheap to buy anyway. I pay $1.50/lb for top quality snapper heads.
Making Stock With the Same Bones More than Twice?
Some cooks claim to use hard bones like beef or buffalo for making stock not once, not twice, but three or more times!
An article by Amanda Rose on The Nourishing Gourmet claims that high gelatin bones called “beef feet” can produce up to 12 batches of gelatinous stock!
How many times should you make remouillage considering that each batch will have less flavor than the previous one?
The choice is totally up to you.
Certainly, when the bones disintegrate is a good sign to stop. This happens with fish heads which are good for only a single batch.
However, if you have beef bones that are still hard and obviously have some minerals left in them after the first couple of batches, then go ahead and make another batch and see what happens.
Best Uses for “Second Batch Bone Broth”
It’s important to keep in mind that you aren’t losing anything by making a second batch of broth with the same bones.
If the stock turns out too weak tasting, simply boil it down. This will concentrate the flavor until it is acceptable to use as a base for your soups, sauces, and gravies.
Other uses for weak, second batch broth include:
- Weak remouillage is perfect for cooking rice or quinoa instead of plain filtered water.
- Use it to make savory soaked oatmeal instead of the typical sweet versions.
- Remouillage makes a tasty base for mashed potatoes.
- Try cooking up your next pot of sourdough pasta in remouillage instead of water.
Are you already a fan of this French art of using bones twice to make broth? If so, please share your experience!
I have been making perpetual stock with my bones for a while now and if the flavour is starting to fade, I’ll just add some meat to the stock – chicken legs to chicken stock, stew beef or stir fry beef to beef stock and then cut up the meat to add to the soup. I have 5 kids so we`ll go through a full size pot of soup in no time, so I always strain all the stock from my pot and then add cold water and apple cider vinegar every time – really important to add the vinegar so the minerals continue to be pulled from the bones, but I`ve found if I don`t completely strain the last batch of stock from the bones, the new stock will taste vinegarry (if that`s even a word lol). I`ve been able to keep the stock going for a bout a week at a time, usually straining and re-filling the pot with water/vinegar every afternoon or two. Works great! 😀
wanna talk frugal? i then use the bones (after i’ve used them twice) to make pet food. grind them down in the food processor and BOOM your pets LOVE it. talk about using the entire animal. Nothing gone to waste 🙂
I make a second batch two nights ago…. and left it out on the counter overnight when I was cooling it on accident. I refrigerated it when I found it that morning. Should I dump it to the dogs or reboil it? It’s only about a quart.
If it were me I’d just re-simmer it and use it.
Me too. I routinely leave mine overnight to cool. I just salt it well when I turn off the heat (if I haven’t already) and make sure I either cook it or refrigerate it in the morning.
I thought you all might enjoy this poem that my 8th grade some wrote as part of his homeschooling curriculum. He is required to write one poem per week usually on a subject of his choosing. He was having trouble coming up with an inspiring subject and I told him to just write about something that he likes. Here is what resulted:
Free Range Chicken Noodle Soup
Sourdough bread is delicious in bed
And (anywhere else for that matter).
You can eat it when up,
You can eat it when down,
You even can eat on a ladder!
It’s yummy with soup,
(Chicken noodle soup),
Thought the chicken has got to be free;
Out eating bugs, maybe under rugs,
That’s what will do it for me!
So proud of my real food eaters, and 14 year old boys require large quantities of both soup and sourdough bread:)
Love it!
I make my chicken bone broth in the crockpot and use the bones for 3 consecutive batches of broth. The last batch is not nearly as gelatinous as the first, but it is still strong in flavor, so I know we are receiving benefits from it!
I make a perpetual bone broth in my crock pot. Just started some yesterday – whole chicken, carrots, celery, herbs, onion and garlic. Let that run it’s course in the crock pot and then I de-bone the chicken (using it for other recipes or just make a meal out of that), put the bones back in the broth and keep it on the warm setting all week (adding veggies when it seems it need more flavor). Throughout the week, we dip out the broth, strain it into a cup and drink it; we replace what we take out with filtered water (take out a cup of broth, add in a cup of water). Add a little Himalayan salt to keep it flavorful. By the end of the week, we feed the bones to our dog, chicken legs and all because its so soft you can squish them with your forefingers. The old veggies go to our chickens!
I really love your method, Kristi! I’m going to try that with my next broth. I usually make my broth on the stove, cooking for 18 to 24 hours (sometimes longer). I use the meat for baby food or in recipes and the other leavings go to the dogs. I wish I had known about reusing the bones!
Kristi, what a GREAT idea!!! I am so excited to try this!!! Thanks for sharing!!! 🙂
Is it safe to leave a pot on warm all week?
Yes it is safe. I’ve done this with chicken bones and with and goat bones in my crock pot, and learned it from Jenny at Nourished Kitchen. She got the idea from perpetual soup, which sat on the stove for a very long time…villagers just added more bones, veggies and water as they drew off soup to eat.
I draw off a quart of bone broth every day and replace it with freshly boiled water so the temp stays hot. I’ve never had a problem with off flavor or it going bad.
I’m frugal to the point of ridicule, and make at least two batches of stock from chicken bones, at least three from beef and pork. After the bones have cooked once, many can be snapped to get the marrow into the stock. I also reduce all my stocks to a very rich color. It takes up less space for storage and I can always add additional water if needed.
I think the point about breaking the bones open to reveal the marrow is very wise! I bought a pair of designated kitchen pliers for this task when using chicken bones. For the bigger bones like beef bones, ask your farmer or butcher to cut the bones to access the marrow.
If you wait until they’re softened, they break easily with your fingers. This makes the second stock more flavorful than it would otherwise be.
I hadn’t thought about cooking down the stock for storage purposes and the fact that I could add more water to it later. That’s a good idea. I am such a fan of using the crock pot to do all that slow cooking for me that it really shouldn’t be a burden to do this. I also got a second crock pot for Christmas! Next year, maybe a third! haha
Reminds me of:
Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot, nine days old
Yes, remouillage is probably as old as the hills, boiled for 9 days.
Kind of random, but at least near me, Whole Foods will give away fish bones for free. Whatever they’ve got that day. If you call ahead and ask them to save some for you when you’re going to shop, they will. I have made fish stock this way before for free!
Thanks for the tip, Kate! A Whole Foods just opened near where my husband works, and while we don’t shop there regularly, I would send him in for free fish bones for stock.
Sarah,
I am curious about your thoughts on using fish bones, with the Fukashima incident starting to unfold with high radiation levels in Pacific Coast fish. I know you are on the East Coast, but, would you recommend using fish bones for Pacific coasters??? Seems like that could really be dangerous *if* the articles I’m reading are actually true. Have you heard anything on this? Thanks.
I have been doing this for a while now on the advice of another real food blogger. I have learned to mark my stock batches #1, #2, and #3 when I freeze them. Then, I know which ones to grab when making soup or rice. I have found the weaker ones are also good for adding to soups and gravies if they get too thick. My boys have taken to asking for mugs of broth in the morning after breakfast instead of tea.