Store-Bought Bone Broth, Ranked Worst To Best

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when a combination of "clean eating" diet trends and clever marketing took animal bones boiled in water to new heights: Definitely somewhere in the 2010s, when bulletproof coffee, paleo, keto, coconut oil, CrossFit, and — [insert wellness word salad here] — peaked in popularity. The result, "bone broth," took on a trendy health aura all its own, much of which is well-deserved. Long-simmered bones release a host of nutrients like collagen, calcium, phosphorus, and amino acids that benefit our health in an easily accessible liquid that tastes good. Not to mention, it's a great way to get protein into your diet.

But the concept is nothing new. Humans have been boiling bones in water and using the liquid for thousands of years. Even in more recent memory, this ingredient was a key player in kitchens everywhere: until just the last few years, the liquid from boiling chicken bones was known as chicken stock. Chicken broth, on the other hand, was what resulted from boiling chicken meat, sometimes with veggies and spices. Typically, stock was more of an ingredient, and broth was something that could be sipped alone. In a somewhat confusing turn that's gone mainstream, stock has been rebranded as "bone broth." And though purists might insist bone broth should only contain bones and water, I was surprised to find that most featured a host of other veggies, spices, and other ingredients. I tasted nine of the most popular chicken versions on supermarket shelves today, and ranked them by flavor so you don't have to.

We're not really sure if Dr. Kellyann should be called a doctor in the classical sense, since her main qualifications appear to be a doctorate in naturopathic medicine and frequent appearances on the Dr. Oz show. But she definitely wrote a best-selling book touting bone broth as a quick weight-loss solution — and hawks supplements and diet products that promise to help you detox, cleanse, and shed pounds. Unsurprisingly, she also sells her own line of bone broths. 

Regrettably, Dr. Kellyann may not qualify as a chef in the classical sense, either. Judging from the label, this bone broth should taste good. It includes a range of ingredients that no others did: chicken fat, vegetable stock, and an "organic veggie powder blend" made of broccoli, broccoli sprouts, tomato, carrot, spinach, and kale. Yet with all those ingredients, this bone broth tasted like ... nothing. It was basically just liquid with the ghost of something else ... Chicken mist? Veggie vapor? It's impossible to tell, because this tastes like warm water — and slightly bitter water at that. There's not even a redeeming saltiness to bring out any of these alleged ingredients — this bone broth is worse than bland. However, if I was ranking based on protein content alone, Dr. Kellyann's would have won with flying colors: just one cup contains 15 grams of protein. But based on taste, I wasn't a Dr. Kellyann fan. 

Pacific Foods (owned by Campbell's) makes some great products — I've yet to find a soy milk I like better, by all accounts its soups are solid, and the organic ingredients are a definite plus. Pacific's bone broth is widely available, and comes in six different varieties — but the basic chicken really fell short on flavor. Here again the list of veggies and other ingredients was promising: onions, carrots, celery, rosemary extract, spices, and apple cider vinegar — all organic. But it had a weird flat taste, and reminded me again of water with far too little dry bouillon powder added in. Here, too, there wasn't enough salt to bring any flavor out. Like Dr. Kellyann's bone broth, one cup has 14% of your daily sodium intake. 

While Pacific was certainly an improvement on Dr. Kellyann's, I could still find little to recommend this for sipping on its own. However bland the flavor, though, Pacific's bone broth could still work in a hearty soup, stew, a veggie dish that needs a protein boost, even, dare we say, a cocktail. But you'll need a lot of other supporting flavors to make this one work. 

This company is known for its elegantly packaged meat snacks, and the marketing itself, with its sharply serif-ed fonts and muted color scheme, is almost enough to convince a customer that what they're paying extra for is worth it. But again, the chicken bone broth did not deliver. Instead of water with a hint of bouillon cube, however, I found myself wincing at Epic Provisions bone broth's weird aftertaste — was it a burned flavor? Plastic, though this broth comes in a snazzy glass jar? The few sips I took were initially chicken-y enough, but the other additions — or something else I couldn't put my finger on — weren't working here. This broth listed apple cider vinegar, and also rosemary and turmeric among the ingredients. The rosemary came through in a big way, but it didn't help matters. Maybe it was the spices and herbs that gave it a dissonant note? Chicken feet, which I suspect weren't the problem, were also listed (other bone broths simply list "chicken bones" — does this not also include the feet?). The salt level was good — even a bit high — but it only made the off-flavor more pronounced. 

One note: this broth did gel when refrigerated, a marker of high collagen content and long-simmered bones. Simmering bones extracts the collagen within, which becomes gelatin — the same principle that gave us Jell-O and other gelatin-enhanced foods. The jury's still out on how consistently useful the collagen from bone broth is, however. In my opinion, Epic Provisions is not a tiny jar of bone broth you'd want to shell out big bucks for. 

Kettle & Fire was one of the few brands I tried that focuses almost exclusively on bone broths, though they also offer prepackaged soups. I had pretty high expectations because of this, and in the end, Kettle & Fire landed solidly in the middle of the pack. The flavor wasn't especially memorable, though it tasted enough like chicken. Besides chicken bones, Kettle & Fire's broth included onions, carrots, fennel, leeks, apple cider vinegar, thyme, mushrooms, tamarind paste, bay leaves, and sea salt. The ingredients sounded promising, but the sum of their parts tasted like ... stock. Notably, there was no strange aftertaste. 

This bone broth contained just enough salt (though my salty personal preferences would have taken more), and the color of the broth was a satisfying brown. But I also couldn't detect any particular depth, umami, or much vegetable savoriness. This could make a welcome addition to recipes that call for chicken stock, but I'm not sure I liked it enough to sip on its own. I will give the founders props for not selling their company to a big food giant, like their meaty competitor Epic Provisions did (and customers are not thrilled with the change). They maintain full ownership, and claim to adhere to using 100% grass-fed beef and other sustainable practices. 

Okay, here's where things get a little tricky. When I say bettergoods bone broth tasted almost exactly like Kettle & Fire ... well, the difference was almost indistinguishable, even when I tried them side by side. My pet theory is that Walmart let an independent company do the work of building a bone broth company, and then modeled its own copycat store-brand version after it. And here's the thing: bettergoods flavor is just a hair better, though neither had enough salt for my taste. There's a little more depth to this chicken bone broth than to Kettle & Fire's — a little more roundness, or roasted flavor. Where Kettle & Fire's bone broth just ends, bettergoods' keeps going. Like Kettle & Fire's, it's certified USDA organic. At nearly half the price, it's a highly compelling alternative for pure value.

The ingredients, however, are different from Kettle & Fire's. No leeks here, but there's garlic, thyme, oregano, bay leaves, and — I think this is what's behind the deeper flavor — organic yeast extract. The bone broths I tried that featured this umami-agent (not to be confused with nutritional yeast) were just that much more rich than their counterparts. This broth gelled up in the fridge, indicating a higher collagen content, and it packs in 11 grams of protein per cup compared to its counterpart's 9.5. But a disclaimer on the box where the collagen content is touted warns: "Not a significant source of protein. Collagen has a 0% digestibility factor." Confusing! Does this apply to all bone broths, or just Walmart's? When it came to flavor though, this was a solid pick. 

I was pleasantly surprised by Swanson's Chicken Bone Broth, which tasted more like a decent bouillon than anything else. Fun fact: Swanson was the first company to invent the TV dinner, though they eventually sold that branch of the business off and are now owned by Campbell's. Though the flavor might come as a surprise to someone in the market for pure chicken broth, it wasn't necessarily a drawback to me. The veggies were front and center here, with carrots, cabbage, celery, onion, salt, tomato paste, parsley, and thyme — and the tomato paste lent some depth and maybe even a bit of color. There weren't so many of the spices that seemed to give some of its competitors, like Epic Provisions and Pacific Foods, a dried-leaf, powdery taste. The salt level was just enough to make this broth sippable, but still quite low — Swanson's is mild enough to add to a dish without changing its salt level much. Notably, the ingredients don't list "chicken bones" but rather "chicken stock." 

This further confirms the theory that mass marketed bone broth could be essentially the same exact thing as chicken stock, given a trendier rebrand. You may not get some of the benefits of a "true" bone broth, which are difficult to define. But if a good flavor and even better value are priorities, this may be the standalone broth or soup base for you. 

Here among the bunch was a chicken bone broth that stood apart in more than a few ways. Roli Roti Butcher's was the only refrigerated bone broth — I had to ask a store employee to help locate it (near the dairy section), and the lightest color of the bunch, a pale, nearly clear yellow. This bone broth also came in a bottle, but instead of a pourable liquid like the other broths, Roli Roti's was gelatinous from the refrigeration — nearly solid, in fact. I could still spill it into a bowl, and after a minute in the microwave, and it was entirely liquid again. Any bone broth head will tell you that more gelatinous bone broths are a marker of quality, though again, bone broths' health claims and benefits can be inconsistent.

And for purists, this bone broth, from a former food truck owner and butcher, most closely met the category's implied virtues: organic, only three ingredients (water, chicken, carrots), potentially high levels of collagen, and almost no salt (only 7% of your daily intake per cup). This is likely the closest you could get to the contents of your pot if you literally boiled a whole chicken for an entire day (and honestly, folks, you'd get a lot more bang for your buck if you just did that). It was certainly the most purely chicken-y of the bunch, packs in a ton of protein, and could make a great mild recovery food. Roli Roti's subtly flavored bone broth is not cheap, but it is the real deal. 

Bonafide Provisions' chicken bone broth was unassuming, but outperformed most of its competitors just by ... not being weird? It tasted solidly like veggie-enhanced chicken broth, with no other unexpected flavors or vibes. With chicken bones, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, cider vinegar, sea salt, thyme, bay leaf, and parsley — all organic — this chicken broth tasted nowhere near as veggie-heavy as Swansons, with a cleaner chicken taste. It felt a little more smooth than its competitors, giving the impression of a higher quality product. This bone broth had low sodium, on par with Kettle & Fire and bettergoods' offerings, but was somehow a little bit more satisfying. I was left with some questions, though: If bone broth's claim to fame is collagen and nutrient-richness from bone breakdown, why were all but one of the packaged bone broths I tried completely liquid, and why did all of them fortify their chicken base with veggies? My guess is, more dilution with water, and shorter simmering times. 

So, are any of these shelf-stable bone broths delivering on the health promises of the bone broth craze? Probably not, unless they gel up in the fridge. And this one was also a little pricey. But if you want a tasty, versatile chicken broth, Bonafide Provisions may be the one for you. We'd even consider using it for this TikTok-viral bone broth hot chocolate. Yup, we said it. 

Zoup's bone broth came in a big, cheerfully labeled jar, showcasing its deeply colored contents. When I shook it, like I did with every broth container, I could see the sediment come up from the bottom, which gave Zoup's broth a distinctly homemade feeling. And the flavor was excellent: Like a great chicken soup cooked by a beloved relative, this bone broth was unmistakably savory, satisfying, and sippable. Curiously, this bone broth was among those with the fewest ingredients, but the only one to list "natural flavor" alongside chicken bone broth, yeast extract, and sea salt. I'm not sure what that natural flavor contains, but I'm also not complaining. Like the other broths that added yeast extract, Zoup's delivered a deep, rich umami hit, and had enough salt to enjoy all on its own. One note: This broth did not firm up in the fridge, which suggests little collagen, and the protein content here was the lowest of all the broths at just 4 grams per cup.

Maybe it was the flavor, but it could have also been the zany name and packaging that harkened back to the soup-restaurant trend of the '90s — why don't we see soup joints everywhere like we did back then? Turns out, Zoup! Is indeed a holdover from that '90s comfort-food answer to extravagant '80s dining (the Zoup! restaurant chain was founded in 1997, close to when Panera and Hale and Hearty also got their soupy starts). And if this bone broth proves anything, it's that the brand has stood the test of time for a reason. 

For this ranking of packaged bone broths, I chose to try plain chicken bone broth instead of other flavors, to facilitate the most accurate side-by-side comparison. All bone broths but one I tried were shelf-stable, and I left out bone broths marketed with other flavors or variations, like low-sodium versions. I evaluated a combination of top selling bone broths for sale online and highly rated bone broths that appeared most often in online searches. I narrowed my picks down to those available to me locally. Most of these bone broths are available at national retailers.

I shook each container gently, poured a small amount into a glass bowl or cup, heated for about a minute in the microwave, and tried each one several times in varying orders. My primary criteria was flavor. And since all of the chicken bone broths featured more ingredients than just chicken and water, I judged more on overall flavor and less on "how close did this come to the taste of pure chicken?" Next, I considered whether or not each broth could stand alone — nearly all would work as part of a soup or sauce, where their presence would be fairly undetectable. To a lesser extent, I considered the appearance of each bone broth and its value: did it taste good enough to justify its price tag? I also briefly took note of the ingredients and practices of the brand, for example, an organic certification. Though I noted some aspects of nutritional value and health claims, the focus here was on flavor.