Braised Beef Shank Soup
Super simple and highly nutritious with local purple potatoes, perfect for a long sleepy winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
Want to learn how to make a braised beef soup for the times when you just want something basic yet nutrient dense, metabolically supportive and palate cleansing? Look no further!
Beef shank is one of those cuts that provide more well-rounded nutrition than plain old steak, from the rich bone marrow to the collagen-rich muscle meat, most well known to me in the Italian dish, osso buco. If you can’t access beef shank specifically, you can use ANY high quality grass fed and finished, ethically raised cut and type of meat you do have access to, preferably something that can be braised to the point where the meat falls apart with a spoon. Other awesome cuts include: beef cheeks, oxtail, tendons, chuck roast, tongue, brisket, short rib, and knuckles.
To make this, you essentially just throw all ingredients into a slow cooker/pot to boil, then simmer for 4-6 hours and call it a day. Ideally for the liquid, you’ll want to use bone broth to make it as nutrient dense and flavourful as possible, but if you’re short on time or lazy AF, just use regular pure spring water or reverse osmosis filtered water, and try to consume bone broth or a collagen supplement regularly. Make your own spring water bone broth as a base for the soup by simmering it any time from 4-48 hours, or buy it pre-made. By using a high quality bone broth, you reap the benefits not only from the bone broth, but also the meat and vegetables! You could even add a splash of biodynamic, sulfate-free red or white wine if you like.
Ingredients
Add in the veggies towards the end of cooking, or they’ll be complete mush!
Grass fed and finished bone broth or plain pure spring water to cover the meat (4-5 cups)
1-1.5 lbs organic, pasture raised, grass fed and finished beef
1/2 tbsp dried organic/wild herbs of choice, such as rosemary, nettle, thyme, sage, allspice
1 small/medium organic onion, chopped
big pinch of sea salt (about 1 tsp or more, to taste) - I used a herbed sea salt for even more flavour
few cracks of black pepper
2 large organic carrots, chopped (save the ends for future bone broths)
1/2 a large stalk of organic celery (save the bottoms for future bone broths)
2-3 organic potatoes, chopped
Method
Searing the meat first in organic coconut oil. Cast iron or carbon steel are the least toxic surfaces.
First off, you want to get your bone broth simmered. Use any aromatics/herbs/roots you like, or pop a couple frozen pre-made broth cubes into some spring water so it cooks together as a broth. Strain the bones/solid ingredients, and use it to begin with the actual soup. When your broth is ready, add it to the slow cooker/pot.
Optional: first sear the thawed meat on both sides in a bit of high quality cooking fat like lard over high heat. Get the sides nicely browned, but leave the center completely raw. This step is not necessary for a good braise, but if you’ve got the time, it’ll add more dimension to the flavour.
Add your seared beef shank, herbs, onion, salt and pepper to your soup pot. Simmer for 4-6 hours in the slow cooker. If using a regular pot, boil first, then simmer for the same time.
Add in the vegetables near the end of cooking: carrots, celery, potatoes for the remaining 30-45 minutes of simmering, or until veggies are tender.
Remove the meat, shred it up with a fork/knife, pop out the precious bone marrow to eat as well, and return it all back to the pot. Adjust salt to taste, and serve hot!
Tips
Opt for the highest quality organic, ethically pasture raised, grass fed and finished meat and bones you can possibly find. The reasons for this are at least twofold: first, bones tend to store heavy metal contamination, so if you’re using low quality, factory farmed bones from animals living an unnatural lifestyle, fed GMO grains, full of heavy metals and harmful chemicals/neurotoxins, this will transfer the sad energy to your bowl with a poisonous broth. Don’t go there. Secondly, to reap the benefits including the amino acid profile and minerals, you want to make sure the animal whose bones you are using has collected these nutrients over a lifetime (sunshine and grass/hay, not factory farms), which gets extracted into your broth from a long simmer.
For a really quick soup or if you prefer to forego onions/potatoes, just use carrots and celery as your vegetables. Play around according to your needs and preferences. You basically get your bone broth, then add in your meat for 4-6 hours, then lastly, veg to soften before serving. Sea salt will open up the flavours, use as much as you prefer.
This soup is extremely basic for a reason. If you’re familiar with cleansing practices like fasting, you may understand the role of high quality meat as sort of a neutral blank slate for the human body (like cyclical ketosis). Consider a simple, lightweight soup like this to reintroduce animal protein after the first few veggie-centric days of the refeeding process.
Add your veg to cook at the very end of the simmer with approx. 30-45 minutes remaining, or they will end up as complete mush! I only added onion at the beginning since it doesn’t get as mushy and it adds flavour, but it’s up to you. Mushy carrots and celery are nasty though, so definitely keep them to the end.
If you’re using a regular pot, feel free to sauté the onion/veg in cooking fat the old fashioned way (this also adds more depth of flavour), then add the meat and liquid to boil, then simmer.
