Home-Made Broth for Dog Food

 

How to Make Homemade Broth for Your Dog’s Food

Many dog food recipes do not include broth as a necessary ingredient. You don't  have to make homemade broth for your dog food, but I personally found that if I wanted Dezzzzi to eat the rice and vegetables portion of the food, I needed to do everything in my power to make them as delectable as possible. 

Once I started cooking them in homemade broth, she started cleaning her plate. Before, she would either pick out the vegetables or rice as best as she could, or she would only eat half of the meal and leave the rest (hoping I would add something special to convince her to eat the rest). While I am definitely not stingy with treats and toppings, I didn't feel good about her eating food that had been sitting out all day. 

It was my experimentation with different ways of cooking her food to get her to eat all of it (cause the nutrients!) that let me to making broth at home and using it to add more flavor. 

As an added bonus, it’s also inexpensive and provides extra nutrients!

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Why Make Your Own Broth At Home?

Homemade broth is:

• Cents on the dollar when compared to store bought broth. We just pay for water since the rest is leftovers from the food we already had.

• A great way to "recycle" leftover bones and vegetable scraps

• A way to add even more nutrients and flavor to food

• Devoid of harmful ingredients that are toxic to dogs (or that your dog may be sensitive to)

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Simple Homemade Dog Broth Recipe

Ingredients

• 2–3 pounds raw or cooked bones (chicken, turkey, or beef)

• Vegetable scraps (a freezer bag full)

• Water (filtered, if possible)

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (optional, helps extract minerals)

Instructions

1. Place bones and vegetable scraps in a large pot.

2. Fill pot with water, covering the bones completely with water.

3. Add apple cider vinegar (optional).

4. Bring to a boil and then drop to a simmer for at least 4 hours.

5. Let cool.

6. Strain out all bones, bone fragments (very important), and vegetables.

7. Refrigerate for up to 5 days or freeze.

Once chilled, the broth may become gelatinous — this is normal and actually a sign it’s rich in collagen.

Here is my process: 

I gather up the freezer bags of vegetable scraps (make sure you avoid these items!) and bones. Sometimes I have more than I need, so I will just put them back in the freezer for the next time I make stock. 

I empty the bags I'm going to use into the big pot at the top of this post (isn't the color the best?). I bought it at HEB and it holds 16 quarts. I used a smaller pot before I found this one and it worked fine - I just enjoy having the extra quantity I can get out of a bigger pot since it saves me on how often I need to make more stock. 

This is what the pot should look like after it has been filled. I leave any chicken skin (from rotisserie chicken or leftover chicken wings) in there. Any meat clinging to the bones also gets thrown in there, too. I don't think Dezzzzi minds. 

Yes, a few garlic skins made their way into the pot, but the amount was minute and easily tolerable by a 100+ lb dog. I strongly recommend you avoid garlic unless you know that your dog can tolerate small quantities of it, since it does contain allicin and ajoene (cardiac and smooth muscle relaxers, vasodilators, and decreasers of blood pressure).

Once the broth is cooked, all you need to do now is spoon it out into your containers. I spoon it into the Souper Cubes I have first, then the remainder goes into repurposed glass jars I have. 

It is MUCH easier to use the strainer method I have pictured here to slowly push down the scraps, allowing for the strained broth to come through for easy scooping. The pot is far too heavy to pick up and pour through a strainer into another pot, and this method means only one pot ends up dirty. 

If at all possible, consider using a wooden ladle. I got my set from Amazon here. It helps me feel like I'm avoiding microplastics as much as possible.

 

See that great color the broth has? That's the color of delicious!

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What Do I Do With It?

I use the stock instead of water to cook the rice for my homemade dog food (Recipe will be coming soon!). 

I also discovered that boiling zucchini spears and whole carrots in the broth, just long enough to get them to soften, then freezing them makes great treats! I learned the hard way that if I didn't cut the zucchini into spears, the resulting frozen whole veggie was too hard for her to gnaw through without hurting her gums. I plan on making a post with all the different homemade treats I make and I will include this one (with pictures of what works and what doesn't) so you don't have to do all the trial and error we did. 

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Important Safety Notes

• Never give cooked bones back to your dog.

• Always strain carefully for bone shards.

• Avoid onions, garlic, salt, and spices.

• If your dog has pancreatitis or special dietary needs, talk to your vet first.

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Homemade broth is one of the simplest upgrades you can make to your dog’s diet. It’s budget-friendly, comforting, and especially helpful for older dogs or picky eaters. It was the magic ingredient (besides love!) that got Dezzzzi to lick her plate!