Are you making bone broth yet?
Well, it’s something you should look into if you haven’t. Packed full of amino acids, gut healing nutrients, and minerals like magnesium, potassium, and calcium, it’s crazy beneficial for your bone health, digestion, and even contains anti-inflammatory components. Plus, when you make it at home instead of buying it, you save SO much money and you have all the control over the quality of ingredients.
My favorite way to make bone broth is with the slow cooker method. When using bones from animals with higher fat content like beef, lamb, or pork, you’ll notice that you get a good amount of fat in the broth. I love fat, but I usually don’t like to drink it in my broth. One way to deal with this is to place the broth in the fridge overnight. As the broth chills, the fat rises to the top and hardens, making it easy to skim it off with a spoon or a spatula.
I like to save the skimmed fat from the broth in a separate container because there’s no way I’m throwing away something so nutritious that gives us sustainable, nourishing energy.
However, the fat in this form is hard to use in cooking, and it goes bad quickly because the moisture content is still high from the broth. To make it last longer and to use it as a cooking oil without having it splatter everywhere, you have to cook off the moisture. You can do this on the stove top, but if you know me at all, you know I like to use the slow cooker.
Depending on how much fat comes out of the broth, I usually save it in the freezer until I have enough (usually after 2-3 batches of bone broth). And once I do, I defrost it in the fridge then throw it all in the slow cooker.
Leaving the lid slightly ajar, I cook it on low for 5-6 hours so all the liquid moisture can cook off. Afterwards you are left with just the delicious fat that you can use for frying, stir-frying, and baking. One of the added benefits of animal fats is that they are highly saturated so they can be used safely in high heat cooking.
Pour into a glass jar, and once it cools, screw on the lid and store in the fridge. It’ll harden, and turn beautifully creamy and white. With this method, it’ll keep for months in the fridge!
Ingredients
- Bone broth
- Slow Cooker
- Funnel
- Cheesecloth
Instructions
- After making bone broth, place the broth in a large pot or container and place in the fridge overnight or at least 5 hours.
- As the broth chills, the fat will float to the top and harden. Skim off the fat with a spoon or a spatula. Don't worry if there are bone bits and some broth attached to the fat,.
- Save the fat in the freezer until you have at least a cup of fat to render (about 2-3 batches of bone broth).
- If your fat is frozen, defrost in the refrigerator.
- Place all the fat in the slow cooker, set it on low for 6 hrs. Leave the lid slightly ajar so the liquid can cook off and evaporate.
- Once finished, double up a cheesecloth over a funnel to strain into a glass jar.
- Let it cool to room temperature completely before screwing on the lid and storing in the fridge.**
Notes
Is there a way to get rid of the moisture without using the slow cooker
Yes, you can do it on the stove top on low heat. I would reduce the time to 3-4 hours and check that the fat isn’t burning every so often.
What do you use the fat for? Why keep it?
Because it’s great for cooking and so tasty as well.
That’s fantastic idea
I use to drop few ice cube while it’s boiling to gather oil easly
Thank you
That’s fantastic idea
I use to drop few ice cube while it’s boiling to gather oil easly
Thank you
Thank you for the great tips. I’m new to making bone broth but I’ll be freeze drying my finished product and needed some ideas for the fat that I skimmed off.
I just knew there was a way to purify it a bit more! Thank you. I have a ton I need to do this with.
I’m so glad others are saving the fat. I just did mine on the stovetop and poured the fat into silicone candy molds. Once it hardens, I’ll pop them out, bag them up and freeze them. Each one is 2t, so I know what they measure up front.
I’m thinking of using this fat in savory fat bombs. Do you have a recipe that would work for that?
What a great idea! I don’t have any savory fat bombs, but I have sweet ones like this one and this one. If it’s too strongly flavored, I just use it as cooking oil!
That’s great! Thank you for sharing. (Just new to all of this…?)
Hello, what are savory fat bombs?
I’m going to try this! Thank you
When I dry the fat I do it on the stove top but I like to get it about 240 +/- deg. This boils off any moisture rather quickly. (When it stops making a frying sound and stops bubbling you know it is dry) wait a few minutes after the moisture is cooked off to get the fat up to 240. (When fats are boiling the moisture off the temp hovers at about 212 degrees) I then use a good quality paper coffee filter in a strainer rather than cheese cloth simply because of cost and convenience, then pour the fat through the filter while the fat still relatively hot but not dangerously so. This helps the fat to filter more efficiently as it has not begun to congeal.
This higher temp allows the fat to last longer because not only does it dry the fat, it’s helps to sterilize it as well. The beauty of saturated fat is it can handle the heat without the fat structure braking down like vegetable oil does when you get it too hot.
I also use this same method to dry and filter bacon fat for long term storage and it works amazingly well. You simply can not beat the taste and quality of both bacon and marrow fat.
This process was taught to me as child by my great grandmother who was born in 1895 who used this process to render any animal fat and this process allowed the fat to stay fresh before the days of refrigeration. She stored it in wide mouth glass jars with wood stoppers on the counter top. If she had a container that had sat for a long period of time she would just scrape off the top 1/4 inch of the fat and save it for making soap. Nothing was ever wasted. The only thing that will spoil the dried and sterilized fat is when it oxidizes when exposed to air. Getting rid of a thin layer would expose the un-oxidized fat below. If you ever wonder how they did it before refrigeration, this is it. She lived to be 102 and did not kill anyone in the family with the food she cooked so that’s all the proof I need.
Another interesting note, Gramps would take the spent bones after they dried and burned them in the brush pile, then these ashes were used in the garden to add minerals back to the soil. We now know this also helped to keep the soil from going to acidic.
That was so inspiring Jerry, thank you for sharing!!!
Very interesting and informative thread. Thanks for sharing.
I hope you get my heart felt appreciated thanks. I just love hearing how things were done right in days gone by. I have a Mrs Curtis1910 house hold helper and cook book. It has so many different ways to do things with many different ways to convince. It is confusing, but the way you explained your great grandmother ways its like oh right ??thanks again for sharing ?
Thanks, Jerry! I’m definitely going to try this!
Thank you so much! It’s my first time experimenting with marrow fat and your insight gave me a cleat path. Also yes! To bacon fat!
Thanks for the info 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
AWESOME! Too few know how to make the best use of everything! So consumed with “throw it away” … Thank you for sharing this bit of your family’s know-how!
This is só helpful. Thank you for the article and Jerry your tips are so valuable,. I always wanted t to use the bonés after extrct the broth for something else, now i definally Will follow your great- grandmother’s recipe to burn the remain bonés and burn them and use It in my garden.
Thank you !!
Awesome information! Thanks for sharing!
I Thank you!
Terri
Hoschton, GA
that is a fantastic story/proof of how our elders were so much smarter and healthier!
I keep my rendered fat in a mason jar with about 1/4 inch of water poured over it. Th water seals out the air and the water is easy to replace and also it also fills the holes that the spoon makes.
That’s genius! Thank you for sharing!
Very cool
Hi Jean, There’s loads of contradictory information available and I’ve just read a few articles on whether ingesting or reusing the fat is a healthy choice. Some are convinced that the fat holds toxins from pesticides, etc. and therefore ingesting animal fat is no longer healthy. Some are comfortable with it so long as certain conditions are met with the treatment and feeding of the animals, while others say there’s no way to completely know the degree of toxins infiltrating our food sources anymore and so use good judgement and enjoy the benefits of fat. That said, I am wondering what your thoughts are on this issue. I don’t live in an area of farms or butchers who carry the higher standards of meats and poultry. Also, I t can take several months for me to accumulate the bones in the freezer to fill a 4 oz jar of fat when skimming it off chilled broth. Would you recommend I heat the small amount of fat in a pot on the stove to remove the moisture? And finally, for how long does the fat stay fresh in the fridge or freezer for future use? Thank you kindly.
As long as you use high quality grass-fed, pasture raised fats, I don’t see this being a problem. If you don’t have easy access to them, you can order from places like the ButcherBox US Wellness Meats. If you only have a small amount of fat to save, I recommend you freeze it until you have enough to follow this recipe for up to 6 months. I don’t recommend you keep it in the fridge because it’ll spoil quickly from the moisture. Once you cook off the moisture, it stays fresh in the fridge indefinitely.
Thanks for this informative article. This is what I do:
When I make beef stock I cook it down quite awhile. I strain and pour the stock into mason jars then refrigerate. After it is cooled, I pry the layer of fat off the top, which is usually half an inch thick or a little more. I put that fat disk in the freezer and pull it out when I want to use it to saute or bake. Although the processed fat in this article is beautiful, I don’t want to go to the extra work to have it accessible in the refrigerator. I just pull it out of the freezer. The stock I freeze flat in zip-lok freezer bags, thin enough that I can break off a piece if I don’t need the whole bag at once to cook with.
For my bacon grease, I cook up a big mess of bacon at one time. I freeze the cooked bacon to use later on salads or crumbled over vegetables. I strain the bacon grease into mason jars (like above with beef stock) and refrigerate. After the bacon grease has chilled and solidified in the refrigerator, I spoon it out and roll it into balls with my hands. About the size of golf balls. I put these into a zip-lok freezer bag. Then I can pull one ball out when I want to cook with it.
Excellent advice! Like you, Karen Garten, I can’t be bothered to go the extra mile for the fat. But I LOVE your suggestions on freezing the fat as well as your bacon fat drippings in balls. Thanks so much!
Interesting take on bacon grease! I’m interested to try. I had a thought though, seems like a lot of extra effort to wait for the grease to cool and then roll into balls, plus messy. Have you tried just pouring it into ice cube trays then you could just pop them out? I have a tray which would make ~1″ cubes which seems like it would achieve about the same results. Just curious.
What awesome ideas! Thank you Karen!
I am wondering if this fat is good to use in making homemade cold process soap?
I’ve never tried, but I don’t see why not if you just need quality fat to make soap.
Hi can I rather freeze it straight after it cooled down and use it? Do not want to go through the whole process to make it refrigerator safe.
You can, but the whole point of cooking it off is to remove the moisture. If you use it straight the way it is and say you add it to a heated pan, the moisture content in it will make it splatter everywhere.
Hi Jean,
That was a great article, very helpful! I have been using the fat from my bone broth for awhile but it always splattered around in cooking, and had to be kept in the freezer or it went bad. Your method of evaporating the water out of the fat is exactly what I need. Thank you so much and all the best!
So glad you found it helpful!
Yeah me too. I just tried again, and the splatter explosions were HUGE. I think the pro tip is to use low heat. I ended up back on the internet thinking, what did I do wrong? I was literally timing so that it would explode, and then I’d move it because I didn’t want to be near it when it went BOOM! It got on the floor about 2 feet away!
This was a very interesting article. Will delete use for reusing my cooking fats. Thank you!
There was a typo in my last comment. It should read:
I will definitely use this method of reusing bone broth fats. Thank you for sharing.
Perfect! Just finished making a largish batch of chicken broth and was wondering how to manage the fat after I skim it tomorrow. So does each type of fat retain the flavors of the broth? If I want fat that is flavorless do I have to leave herbs out of the broth? Thank you for this post!
I recently made my first batch of meat broth (bones, chicken feet, rib cages and veggies). Why is everyone recommending taking off the fat cap? I have frozen the broth in glass containers, with the fat cap, and when I want to drink it, I thaw it, heat it and then drink the broth with the melted fat. Is there a reason why most people seem to want to drink the broth without the fat?
It’s just a personal preference. I don’t mind drinking the fat, but sometimes, I like to drink my bone broth along with food and I’d rather not fill up on the fat so I like to separate it. Some people also have gallbladder issues and can’t digest a lot of fat at once.
I can’t wait to try this out. I love making bone broth, and have used that for years. However, i’ve always tossed out the fat once the broth cools but I always had a nagging feeling that I was wasting something I should otherwise keep. My question is, should I also be doing this with bacon fat? Would it work to preserve that as well in the freezer and then combine it with the bone broth fat and follow your directions above? Or is there some better way?
You don’t have to cook out bacon fat because there’s no moisture in it. You can just strain it and store, and use as is.
Is it safe and healthy to just keep the fat as part of the bone broth and once you heat it and it turns liquid, just drink it as part of the broth?
Yes!
Wonderful information!
I was just looking up something and ran into this. Thank you all for educating me. I usually just drink the melted fat in a Mexican style vegetable soup with lemon juice, it has been my favorite since I was a child.
Can you share your recipe for the Mexican soup?
Thomas Keller of French Laundry does this with his clear chicken broth and skims the “schmoltz” and cooks wit it and i have never seem him for through that extra step. I too will freeze and cook with as needed
I apologize for such a long post but this is what I do with turkey carcass.
After Thanksgiving and other holidays many people donate their turkey carcasses to me because they know that it will not go to waste. I fill my stock pot with all the bones, skin, gristle and fat. I fill the pot to capacity with water and keep it on a low simmer for at least 24 hours sometimes 48.
After that time I strain out the bones and sometimes put them back in their own separate pot with water to Leach out as much nutrient as I can.
The main portion I reduce from about 20 quarts to 2qts creating a very thick stock. I let it come to room temperature and then pour it into tall narrow containers. My old Tupperware works great for this.
After it sits overnight there’s a very thick layer of fat on the top which I lift off and set aside. I put this half gallon of turkey stock back in a smaller pot and I reduce to about two cups. It becomes like a gelatinous ooze.
I bring this to room temperature and then I divide between 4 Sandwich Ziploc baggies which I then place on a cookie sheet in my freezer to make them flat.
This is so highly concentrated and the nutrients are amazing. I use this throughout the year to make homemade noodles and turkey soup. Because the volume is reduced it takes very little room in my freezer.
I also boil the fat until the sputtering subsides. I often put this into ice cube trays then transfer to another ziplock bag.
This morning I used the turkey fat from my fridge to saute some cabbage and scrambled eggs. With a little salt and pepper the flavor is excellent!
SUCH a useful post! I’ve used skimmed fat for cooking occasionally, but LOVE your suggested method to remove all the moisture. I really enjoyed reading your readers’ comments too…definitely saving this post! I just happen to have six quarts of a wonderfully rich beef broth chilling in the fridge, so I’ll experiment today! Thanks!
I’m so glad it’s helpful!! I hope it works out and you can have some yummy fat to cook with.
The best!!!!!
Hmm, I started a post and it disappeared on me! I’m on my way to grab a roasted chicken from Costco to get a few meals out of the meat and some fabulous bone broth from everything left over. I know it would be better to buy my own raw chicken, and when I’m not hungry and can wait for it I will do just that!
I grow my own veggies and herbs to add to the broth. Love Love this post!!
What an amazing idea! I love that nothing goes to waste.