Cooking with broth as the weather cools down with Chef Tom Walton

This month, we welcome back chef and fellow bone broth advocate, Tom Walton to find out how he’s using broth in his cooking now that the weather is starting to cool down. 

Not only is good quality bone broth your best friend when it comes to making your winter warming favourites, it also helps to support a healthy gut and, in doing so, a strong immune system to ward off those pesky winter colds. During the cooler months, we try incorporate broth in our cooking as much as possible and Tom Walton is the master of delicious and nutritious broth based meals.

We sat down with Tom to chat about his favourite ways to get more broth in his diet, his top tips for using it in his kids meals as well as how he’s used broth to reset his digestion. We’ve also got three of Tom’s favourite broth recipes to add to your repertoire.

What are your top three ways to get more broth into your diet? 

A few times a week, I try to swap my morning coffee for broth to kick-start the day with a hit of collagen, vitamins and minerals. Spiking bone broth with a combination of Aussie garlic, ginger, turmeric, black pepper, sea salt, coriander or lemon turbo charges the gut healing and immune boosting qualities of the broth.

I also like to add broth to nourishing, thick vegetable based soups and curries. I use it as the base for delicious phos for lunch and dinner, also packing in lots of veggies, garlic, ginger & herbs.

Any special tips for using broth in kid’s meals?

I find the easiest way to add broth to kid’s meals is by cooking rice with it. We then use the nutrient dense rice as a base for all sorts of different meals.

Our kids also love Pho which is a super easy way to get it into their diet. 

You’ve done a couple of broth ‘health resets’ now where you’ve really focused on increasing your broth intake for week long periods… how have you done this? What benefits have you noticed?

When I do my broth health resets, I notice different health outcomes depending on the time of day - I find I have more energy in the morning and don’t experience the 3pm lag in the afternoon. Overall I feel more nourished, lighter, calmer and more rested from better quality sleep.

During these resets, I swap my meals for broths. I’ll start the day with a light broth, seasoned differently each day to mix up the flavour and keep it interesting, but my go-to is usually garlic, salt, black pepper and lemon. I feel this really lets my body, particularly my digestive system and gut, have a rest and heal, when it’s needed.

If I replace my dinner with broth, I wake up feeling more rested, lighter and clearer as my digestive system hasn’t had to work overnight. Doing this a few nights in a row with nourishing food in the day, leaves me feeling great - sharper, rested, more energised.