8 Best Bone Broths of 2026

Sixteen grams of protein in a single broth packet is the highest figure in this group, and it’s the whole reason the box exists. We expected a collagen supplement wearing a broth label; the surprise is that it tastes like beef — roasted and savory, not the flat, faintly sweet thing protein powder usually does to hot water.

It mixes readily, and a few stirs leave it uniformly dark, though it reads a touch grainy on the last mouthful if the water is only warm. Nothing a hotter mug and a longer stir doesn’t fix, and nothing we minded by the second cup.

The arithmetic is where it loses ground. Twelve packets to a box, at a higher cost per cup than the other beef packets here, so as a daily habit the math gets uncomfortable compared with Bare Bones. As a post-gym or mid-afternoon protein hit that happens to taste like dinner, though, nothing else on this page comes close.

Twelve 32-ounce cartons is a case, and it arrives as one — a shelf-worthy stack that will see most households through a couple of months of actual cooking. The resealable carton is what makes the format work: pour a cup for a pan sauce, cap it, put it back in the door.

It’s built for the stove rather than the armchair. Chicken-forward and herby, savory enough to deglaze with, restrained enough that it won’t stomp on a risotto. Eight grams of protein and 35 calories a cup make it the leanest option here, which is fine when the broth is an ingredient rather than the point of the meal. Ours went into rice, pan sauces, and a great deal of soup.

Where it wins is cost per cup — nothing else here gets close — and the quality holds from carton to carton. It’s the pick for someone who cooks with broth weekly rather than sipping it as a ritual. Two things to know before you commit: check the salt on the exact version you order, since the line doesn’t read the same across every carton, and be honest about whether you have a shelf free for a case this size.

Chill a carton of this and it sets to a wobbly gel, which is the clearest sign of a broth made from real bones and the reason it earns a place here. Grass-fed cattle, organic vegetables, a twenty-hour simmer, and a liquid that behaves in a braise the way your own stock does. If you’ve ever made bone broth, you’ll recognize what you’re paying for.

Flavor is where it divides people, and we understand both sides. It’s mild — genuinely mild, not merely unsalted — so it’s lovely warmed with ginger and a pinch of salt at night, and thin if you wanted a beefy hit straight from the carton. We found it best as a base: a splash in a braise, half a carton with noodles, a reduction that actually thickens.

Two years of shelf life means buying a box and forgetting about it is a legitimate strategy, and the cartons pour and reseal cleanly. It’s not the economical way to drink broth every day — a case of Swanson or a box of packets covers that ground — but when the broth is doing real work in a dish, this is the one that holds up.

Six pouches and a spread of broths — chicken, a deeper beef, a spicy one, and the Hearth blend — which is more variety than any other pick here offers. Tear, warm, pour, drink. Nothing to measure, nothing to refrigerate until you open one, and nothing to wash afterwards but the mug.

The flavor is the best straight-sipping experience in this group. There’s a rounded, roasted depth that the powders can’t reproduce no matter how carefully you stir them, and the seasoned ones taste like something a restaurant would charge you for. If you’ve been drinking the same beef packet every morning for a month, this box is a reset.

Two things hold it back. Each pouch is a single eight-ounce cup, perfect at a desk and mildly frustrating when a recipe wants two. And ounce for ounce it’s the most expensive liquid here — a coffee-shop purchase, not a pantry staple. We keep ours for travel and the office, where the convenience earns the premium.

Eight and a quarter ounces looks like an odd size until you cook with it: it’s one small pot of soup, one rice pilaf, one pan of gravy, with nothing left in the fridge growing a skin. For a household of one or two, that’s a better unit than a quart you open for a splash and forget.

The cartons pour cleanly, stack in a cupboard, and are the cheapest way here to keep a chicken base on hand for weeknights. Flavor is herby and gently seasoned, closer to a good stock than to a bone broth — there’s none of the body or gel you get from the beef options, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise.

That’s the trade to name up front: this is a cooking broth, not a sipping one. We keep a few in the cupboard for the nights a recipe wants a splash and a quart would go to waste. Anyone hoping for a cup to drink at four in the afternoon should put the money into packets or pouches instead.

No salt added, nine grams of protein, and organic certification, in a single carton rather than a case. That combination is why this is the one we buy most often: it’s a low-commitment way to keep a chicken base in the house without dedicating a shelf to it.

Warmed and drunk on its own it’s pleasant but plain. Where it earns its keep is underneath everything else — rice, a pot of vegetable soup, poaching liquid, salt added at the end. It gives a dish a chicken backbone without announcing itself, which is exactly the job a cooking broth is hired to do.

Because it’s unsalted, it’s the right carton for anyone cooking for a household watching sodium, and one of the cheapest here by the ounce, which makes it a low-risk experiment if you’re not sure bone broth is for you. The 32-ounce size is big enough to be useful and small enough that opening it isn’t a commitment.

Our advice: buy it for cooking and for anyone cutting salt, and reach for a beef carton or a packet when you want something to sip on its own. Read the ingredient line before you build a low-allium meal around it — unsalted doesn’t automatically mean nothing but chicken, and seasonings are the one thing about this carton that isn’t obvious from the front.

A tub rather than a box of packets, and that’s the whole argument: one scoop of unsalted beef protein powder that goes into coffee, a smoothie, or a pot of soup instead of into a mug of hot water. It’s the most flexible format here and the least satisfying one to drink neat.

Because it’s unsalted and mild, it mostly disappears into whatever it’s in. We stirred ours into black coffee and got a slightly savory cup, not an unpleasant one; in a smoothie it’s invisible. It dissolves cleanly in warm liquid with a whisk and takes considerably more work cold.

Fifteen grams of protein and added probiotics put it at the supplement end of this list rather than the broth end. On its own in hot water it tastes flat next to the salted packets, and no amount of stirring fixes that — the flavor was never the product.

So buy it if you want protein you can hide in food rather than a cup you look forward to: a spoonful in soup, coffee, or a smoothie, every day, without thinking about it. If a savory mug at four in the afternoon is the goal, Bare Bones or the Brodo pouches are the better spend.