Stuck on stock? Finding a good broth or stock for making dog treats can be difficult. When we share dog treat recipe ideas, we often say to use an unseasoned low-sodium broth or stock. Tricky indeed to find if looking for a ready-to-use product. We’re often asked what kind of broth we use when making treats, but there are no special recommendations or secret recipes in reply. We make our own homemade unseasoned low-sodium dog-friendly broth and stock for making dog treats. It’s easy, healthy, and free. Pawfect!
Stock vs. Broth
Both sound tasty to us, furfriends. I tend to use the words broth and stock interchangeably, but they’re not quite the same. In technical cooking terms, stock is liquid from slow simmering bone. It can have other ingredients, but always includes bone. Broth is liquid from cooking just about anything (bone, meat, herbs, veggies, etc.). Yes, there is a certain irony in than given that we call simmered bone liquid bone broth and not bone stock. Hmmm… Oh well. It’s much of a muchness in terms of doggone deliciousness, though. As long as the ingredients are dog-friendly, you can interchangeably use either broth or stock for making dog treats.
Shopping for Dog-Friendly Broth or Stock for Making Dog Treats
If you are buying stock or broth for dogs, look carefully at the ingredients for any unsafe add-ins. Double-check the nutritional break-down (especially the sodium). Most ready-made human products are very salty, even the low(er)-sodium products. Look for a genuinely low-sodium product, not just reduced. No-added salt is even better, if you can find it. Depending on where you live, there may also be some dog specific products available. They’re not common here in New Zealand, so we haven’t yet tasted tested any ourselves.
Making Dog-Friendly Homemade Stock or Broth
With very little effort or expense, you can also make and store your own stock or broth. This is a great way to have stock or broth on hand for your dogs (or your humans). It gives you complete control over the base flavours and any optional add-in seasonings.
Saving Poaching Liquids
Most of the broth I use is simple cooking water saved from preparing meat for the dogs. I used roast in the oven, but it’s messy so I prefer using a slow cooker aka crock pot (affiliate link). If you don’t have one they’re a great tool for prepping for the dogs, people, or both. But you can also save the liquid from a pot on the stove or pan in the oven the same way. Easy as. Prepping meat in the slow cooker leaves poaching liquid that I filter, chill, skim, and save for future use. Free stock or broth! Even when the slow cooker (or oven pan) is packed tight with meat, there always seems to be liquid. Importantly, including this liquid either with the meat you’re preparing or elsehere in your food or treats will help to keep otherwise lost water soluable nutrients in the diet.
Depending on the meat, the leftover poaching liquid can be rather messy, like the example shown. If needed, after the meat is removed, I pour the liquid through a colander into a catch pan to filter out the big bits of solids. For a clearer broth, this can be repeated through a finer sieve or filter. In the case of the deboned chicken pictured below, I know the solids are little bits of chicken and ok to be included with the rest of the chicken when chopped, but in other cases I may need to seperate and/or manually pick through for bone disposal. The liquid is chilled, and then the set fat is skimmed off the top. Depending on the meat, there may be a lot or a little fat, but I try to skim as much as I can before storage.
Freezing for Storage and Easy Use
My favourite way to store is to freeze in cubes and then transfer into a container or bag. When I want stock or broth, I can simply grab a few cubes. Easy peasy! The cubes are better than freezing measured volumes (my old method). I can use as much or as little as I want at any time and I can also mix flavours of broths together. As an added bonus, they’re yummy straight out of the freezer as little ice treats for the dogs as well. The pictured frozen cubes are beef so you can see the colour difference between the chicken stock and the beef stock.
Bonus Tip: Free Flow Frozen Food Storage
If you aren’t into making homemade food for your dogs, you can do the same with poaching liquid from human cooking, but only if it’s unseasoned (or lightly seasoned with dog-safe ingredients). Poached plain chicken, exactly like I prepare for the dogs, is also something that I have on hand shredded in the freezer. I freeze it on a sheet and then crumble before transfers into a container so that it is loose and free flow. This is one of my favourite way to freeze foods for storage. I don’t eat meat, but my husband does, so this is a handy way to have ready-use add-ins or toppings on hand for salads, pizzas, wraps, etc. Other cooked meats work great this way, too.
Other Homemade Stock and Broth Options for Dogs
Poaching liquids as above or homemade dog-friendly bone broth are my go to sources of stock for making dog treats. Either can be used straight up or diluted. That can be particularly handy if using a rich bone broth in place of a normal thin/watery broth or stock. See additional considerations below. With changes to our dogs diets, I don’t prep meat in bulk very often anymore, so poaching liquid isn’t as readily available. Diluted bone broth has become my go-to swap instead. I batch prep it and freeze in cubes for easy use.
Occasionally, if I’m running low and/or we have bones that I don’t want to freeze for future dog bone broth, I might make a batch of basic stock. It will still be infused with flavour and some nutrients, but not the full jelly goodness of a true rich bone broth. If you aren’t into the idea of simmering meat or bone, dog-safe vegetables and/or herbs can be used to make a broth. You can also substitute a different dog-friendly liquid in a recipe instead. When I use broth (or the option of broth) in treats, it’s there to add the yummy scent and flavour of meat to the treat, but there are plenty of other non-meat scents and flavours that my dogs enjoy.
No stock? Hmmm… Got meat? If you have cooked unseasoned meat (leftovers anyone?), you can process it for a stock swap in some recipes. Check out our pureed chicken/turkey gummy dog treats for an example using this technique.
Other Considerations with Stock for Making Dog Treats
Colour, Scent, and Flavour
The type of meat (or other ingredients) will determine the flavour, scent, and colour of the final broth. Fish, chicken, and turkey tend to be light. Beef and lamb tend to be darker. If you include prep like broiling or grilling (common for bone broths), it will also darken the finished broth. Add-ins like veggies or herbs can also alter the flavour or scent. The dogs care most about scent and flavour, not looks. Colour isn’t an important factor with stock for making dog treats, unless you are aiming for a certain look of tint in a coloured dog treat. Light bases usually work better for tinting. See our post on natural food colourings for more info.
Clarity
Clarity depends on the ingredients, cooking time, and filtering. This isn’t usually an issue for dog treats, unless you have a very specific look in mind, such as a clear translucent gummy. Depending on your filtering, you may have chunky bits in your stock or broth (like my pictured stock). As long as these are dog-safe chunks, that’s cool. My dogs are quite pleased with a little extra meat in their treats. You can puree the stock or broth if you want to reduce the size or have a more uniform base. Big chunks can affect the texture of the treat. This may be a problem if making roll and cut treat dough, as chunky doughs are difficult to cut cleanly.
The Gel Factor
The thickness of your broth or stock for making dog treats can affect the consistency. Especially if you are baking. Some treats, like frozen pupsicles, are very forgiving on consistency. Others may need a little special handling or recipe adjustments. For example, if you are using the stock or broth as liquid for making a biscuit dough, there may be variations in quantity or consistency depending on whether the broth is a thin liquid vs. a thick gel. You might need to dilute the broth or tweak the recipe to suit, working incrementally as you mix and adjusting quantities if/as needed.
A Final Word from the Dogs
From the dogs perspective, looks don’t matter. Only the smell and taste. From a treat perspective, most of these factors are aesthetic considerations. They make little difference to most uses, unless you are trying to create a specific look. Again, the dogs don’t care!
Hungry for more tasty treats? There are all sorts of homemade dog treat ideas in our blog archives. You can also use the category and tag labels to find recipes that might be of interest or use our internal search tools to find something specific. Remember, treats (bought or homemade) are for spoiling your pup in moderation. We share ideas from treats that we’ve made ourselves for our pets, but different animals have different preferences (likes/dislikes), just like people. Some pets may have special dietary requirements and/or food allergies/intolerances. If you are ever in doubt or have questions about what’s suitable for your pet, have a chat with your trusted vet.
