Bone broth recipes to try on Christmas

Christmas is a time to try all the old favourites, to enter into a world of familiar holiday aromas and home cooking adventures. It’s also time to try something a little different, as families new and old get together to celebrate the festive season.

So, whether this is your first Christmas in charge of the kitchen or you’re looking to spice things up with a different approach to old familiars, these bone broth recipes should inspire lots of culinary creativity.

Add flavour to the Christmas turkey or lamb.

It’s a classic that no Christmas would be without, but this year why not enrice the main hero of your midday meal with a bone broth glaze? Not only will it help lock in the juices of the original meat, but it’ll also add additional flavour and succulence, which is particularly beneficial for turkey and chicken meat, as these can easily dry out in the oven.

Simply cool your bone broth in the fridge or add some cornstarch to get a gel-like thickening. Rub this over your meat and heat in the oven until done. This method works particularly well when the meat is scoured with a knife, like ham, as it seeps through the meat adding flavour throughout. However, it’ll also coat your unscored chicken fine and give you delicious tasting chicken skin.

Bone broth salad dressing.

As we never see a white Christmas in New Zealand, our holiday feasts have taken on their own traditions. Next to the barbeque the summer salad is a near favourite for picnic tables in the sun or meal times cooling off in the shade.

If you want to spice up the your old salad recipe, try this dressing mix. Add 100ml of cooled bone broth with 50ml of red wine or apple cider vinegar. Mix with 50ml of olice oil, two well chopped garlic cloves, a teaspoon of sugar, two tablespoons of dried herbs and lemon juice, and a tablespoon of dijon mustard. Mix well in a blender and leave at room temperature.

This dressing can then be poured over anything calling itself a salad for a tangy dressing taste.

Bone broth stuffing.

If your Christmas tastes run traditional, try this trick for a perfect stuffing. This shortcut can help you avoid the usual dry, pouring stuffing that needs a lot of gravy to make it go down easy.

For this recipe you need two pouches of bone broth, either grass-fed beef or free-range chicken. Add stuffing mix or sourdough bread baked on a tray and cut into small pieces. Add to the recipe carrots, celery, an onion, sage and tyme, all chopped and diced accordingly. You might also want to try adding in some other meat, such as pork sausage, for additional flavour.

Preheat the oven, prepare a tray and start a large pot to cook your meat, before adding in your chopped vegetables with butter. Stir in you bone broth and bring to a boil, reducing to a simmer for ten minutes. 

Pour into the tray, adding your bread to the mix and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. 

Bone broth gravy.

However, if you’re a fan of gravy, bone broth can also help.

The simplest way to make gravy is to melt butter in a saucepan and gradually add in regular grade flour, whisking the mixture as you go. Add in chicken or beef bone broth and keep stirring until the mixture thickens. You might also add in some sage, thyme, rosemary, garlic cloves, pepper, or even some red wine to increase the flavour.

Bone broth stew.

The end of Christmas Day usually leaves with it a generous helping of left over meats and vegetables. This year, why not add them to a stew and make you leftovers go further?

All you need is to boil the left over vegetables and meat over a low heat for as long as it takes to get the flavour out. You can then add bone broth from the pouch or make yourself some stock cubes using your broth by freezing them as cubes. When your stew is done, make sure to strain any excess bones. 

Ideally, you want to have the meet sliding off the bone but not entirely boiled away, so you still get nice stew-like chunks. The broth will give consistency to the stew, although a little cornflour can help thicken it further, if you find your stew too thin.

The gift of jam.

It’s sounds crazy, but bone broth can actually be used to create jam, although not the usual strawberry-tasting kind. So if you’re wanting to save this year and make your own gifts, this recipe for sweet and savory onion jam could be a winner.

Dice three large yellow onions while preheating a skillet or pan with oil. Stir around a half cup of sugar into the mix and wait for the sugar to melt. You want to try and get the onions to a nice brown colour. 

Reduce the heat and add in beef or chicken bone broth, with vinegar, letting your mixture simmer for around fifteen minutes. Once it’s off the heat and cooled, mash your creation and pour it into a used jar to cool before gift wrapping. This recipe is perfect for spreading on crackers or sandwiches or for eating with cheese.

Getting your bone broth local. 

If you’re reading this, you’ll likely have a lot of cooking to do this year, and making good bone broth is among the longest of recipes you can make. So, why not get your bone broth instore or order online to save the hassle?

Our bone broth is made form grass-fed beef and free-range chicken, right here in our Christchurch kitchens. We make all our broth by hand so it tastes authentically home made.