Mug of golden bone broth on a wooden table

Best Bone Broth to Buy: Compared (2026)

ByCraig Brockie Last updated

Best Bone Broth to Buy: Our Picks

The biggest differences between store-bought bone broths are protein and sodium, and both are printed on the label. We picked by those numbers and by how short and clear the ingredient list is, not by popularity. All facts come from each brand’s own product page, and labels were checked in October 2026.

  • Food first: homemade bone broth, if you have the time. You control the salt, and a long simmer pulls more out of the bones.
  • Best low-sodium pick: Pacific Foods Organic Unsalted Chicken Bone Broth. 10 g protein and 210 mg sodium per cup, with two ingredients.
  • Best for sipping: Kettle & Fire Chicken Bone Broth. 19 g protein per 16.9-ounce carton, organic vegetables and herbs, no yeast extract or “natural flavor.”
  • Best beef bone broth: Kettle & Fire 100% Grass-fed Beef Bone Broth. Same 19 g protein per carton, with more sodium than the chicken.
  • Best supermarket cooking broth: Kitchen Basics Original Chicken Bone Broth. 10 g protein and 380 mg sodium per cup in a 32-ounce carton.
  • Best grab-and-go: Swanson Sipping Chicken Bone Broth. A single 10.75-ounce microwavable cup with 10 g protein.
  • Best for flavor on a budget, not protein: Zoup Chicken Bone Broth. About $1.87 a cup on the brand site, but only 4 g protein per cup.

Ultimate Gut is published by Ultimate Health Solutions, which sells a yogurt maker, probiotic capsules and an inulin fiber supplement. None of the products reviewed here are ours, and these brands don’t pay us.

Bone broths compared

Kettle & Fire labels one whole 16.9-ounce carton as a single serving, so we also show a per-cup figure calculated from that label (16.9 fluid ounces is about 2.1 cups). Percent Daily Value for sodium is based on the FDA’s limit of less than 2,300 mg a day; the FDA treats 5% DV or less per serving as low and 20% or more as high (FDA, Sodium in Your Diet).

ProductSizeProtein per cupSodium per cupIngredients (short)Price on brand site
Pacific Foods Organic Unsalted Chicken Bone Broth32 oz carton10 g210 mg (9% DV)Organic chicken bone broth, organic apple cider vinegarNot listed
Kettle & Fire Chicken Bone Broth16.9 oz cartonAbout 9 g (19 g per carton)About 300 mg (640 mg per carton)Water, organic chicken bones, organic vegetables and herbs, apple cider vinegar, sea salt$8.49 per carton
Kettle & Fire 100% Grass-fed Beef Bone Broth16.9 oz cartonAbout 9 g (19 g per carton)About 350 mg (740 mg per carton)Water, grass-fed beef bones, organic vegetables and herbs, apple cider vinegar, sea salt$8.49 per carton
Kitchen Basics Original Chicken Bone Broth32 oz carton10 g380 mg (17% DV)Chicken bone broth, vegetable stock, sea salt, natural flavor, yeast extract, black pepper, bay leaf, thymeNot listed
Swanson Sipping Chicken Bone Broth10.75 oz cup (1 serving)10 g per cup460 mg per cupChicken bone broth, vegetables, salt, yeast extract, natural flavoring, chicken fat, herbsNot listed
Zoup Chicken Bone Broth32 oz4 g480 mg (21% DV)Chicken bone broth, natural flavor, yeast extract, sea salt$7.49 (about $1.87 a cup)

How each bone broth stacks up

Several bowls of chicken and beef bone broth side by side

Pacific Foods Organic Unsalted Chicken Bone Broth: best low-sodium pick

This is the simplest label in the group: organic chicken bone broth and organic apple cider vinegar. A cup has 50 calories, 1 g fat, 10 g protein and 210 mg sodium, which is 9% of the Daily Value (Pacific Foods). “Unsalted” means no salt was added during processing, not that the broth is sodium-free (FDA); the 210 mg comes from the chicken itself. That makes it the easiest choice to season to taste or to use in recipes where other ingredients bring salt. The brand page does not list a price.

Kettle & Fire Chicken Bone Broth: best for sipping

Kettle & Fire lists a 16.9-ounce carton as one serving: 80 calories, 0.5 g fat, 19 g protein, 640 mg sodium (28% DV) and 550 mg potassium. The ingredients are water, organic chicken bones, organic onions, carrots, fennel, leeks, apple cider vinegar, thyme, tamarind paste, mushroom extract, bay leaves and sea salt (Kettle & Fire). Per cup, that works out to roughly the same protein as Pacific Foods with a bit more salt. It costs $8.49 a carton on the brand site, about $4 a cup, the most expensive option here. The brand also sells reduced-sodium versions.

Kettle & Fire 100% Grass-fed Beef Bone Broth: best beef option

The beef version has the same 80 calories and 19 g protein per carton, with 0 g fat and 740 mg sodium (32% DV). Ingredients are water, grass-fed beef bones, organic vegetables, organic apple cider vinegar, sea salt and organic herbs and spices (Kettle & Fire). If you drink a whole carton, you get about a third of a day’s sodium, so it suits people who sip one cup at a time or use it in cooking with little added salt. Price is also $8.49 a carton.

Kitchen Basics Original Chicken Bone Broth: best supermarket cooking broth

This 32-ounce carton gives 10 g protein, 50 calories and 380 mg sodium (17% DV) per cup. The ingredient list adds vegetable stock concentrates, natural flavor, yeast extract, black pepper, bay leaf and thyme to the chicken bone broth (Kitchen Basics). Yeast extract and “natural flavor” boost savory taste; they are common in broths and not a safety concern, but they make the flavor less about the bones alone. It is a sensible middle ground for soups and grains. No price is listed on the brand page.

Swanson Sipping Chicken Bone Broth: best grab-and-go

Each 10.75-ounce microwavable cup is one serving with 50 calories, 10 g protein and 460 mg sodium, which is 20% of the Daily Value and in the FDA’s “high” range for one serving. The ingredients include carrots, cabbage, celery, onions, salt, yeast extract, natural flavoring, tomato paste, chicken fat and herbs (Swanson). It is the handiest option for work or travel, as long as the rest of your day is lighter on salt.

Zoup Chicken Bone Broth: flavor on a budget, low protein

Zoup lists 15 calories, 4 g protein and 480 mg sodium (21% DV) per cup, with chicken bone broth, natural flavor, yeast extract and sea salt (Zoup). At $7.49 for four servings on the brand site, it is about $1.87 a cup, the lowest published price here, but it has less than half the protein of the others, which suggests a lighter broth. The brand’s newer Organic Chicken Bone Broth comes in a 14.5-ounce glass jar that the brand says provides 20 g of protein, for $8.99 (Zoup). Its nutrition panel was not shown as text on the page when we checked.

Homemade bone broth: the food-first option

Making your own lets you skip added salt and flavorings. Research suggests time and acidity matter: in one lab study, making the broth more acidic increased the calcium and magnesium pulled from bones roughly 15- to 17-fold, and cooking longer than 8 hours also raised extraction, though even then the amounts stayed small (Hsu et al., Food & Nutrition Research, 2017). Cool and refrigerate it promptly; FoodSafety.gov lists soups and stews at 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator and 2 to 3 months in the freezer (FoodSafety.gov). Our page on bone broth benefits covers what it does and does not offer, and our roundup of gut health drinks has other warm options.

What bone broth can and can’t do

Bone broth is a warm, savory, low-calorie way to get some protein and fluid. Most of its gut-health reputation, though, comes from the nutrients it contains rather than from trials of bone broth itself. A 2025 review by gastroenterology researchers argued that amino acids in broth, such as glutamine, glycine and proline, and minerals may support the gut barrier, based on animal and human studies of those components, and called for more research on broth itself (Matar et al., Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 2025). We did not find controlled human trials showing that drinking bone broth improves digestion. For one of those amino acids, see our page on glutamine. If you mainly want something warm and gentle on a rough day, broth fits alongside the foods in our list of easy to digest foods.

Collagen content is another open question. When researchers measured key collagen building blocks in bone broths, the amounts were well below those in a 20 g dose of a collagen supplement, varied widely between recipes, and were lower in commercial broths than in homemade ones made to the same recipe (Alcock et al., International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2019). No label in this comparison states a collagen amount, so the protein line is the best guide you have.

Minerals are modest. The 2017 study above found calcium and magnesium in homemade and commercial broths at under 5% of daily needs per serving (Hsu et al., 2017). It also found lead and cadmium at only a few micrograms per serving and judged the risk minimal. An earlier small test of three organic chicken broths found lead at several times the level of the water used to make them, 7 to 9.5 micrograms per liter in two of the broths (Monro et al., Medical Hypotheses, 2013). The amounts are small, but it is one more reason to treat broth as one food among many rather than a daily tonic.

Who should watch the label closely

  • Anyone limiting sodium. The Dietary Guidelines recommend adults keep sodium under 2,300 mg a day, and Americans average about 3,400 mg (FDA). Two cups of the broths here use about 18% to 42% of that limit.
  • People sipping broth for protein. Compare grams per cup. In this group it ranges from 4 g to about 10 g.
  • People on medically restricted diets. If your doctor has limited your sodium, potassium or protein, ask before drinking broth daily.

How We Compared

We did not buy, taste or lab-test these broths. We read each brand’s product page and Nutrition Facts panel in October 2026 and compared what the labels say, using these criteria in order:

  1. Sodium per cup, judged against the FDA’s 5% (low) and 20% (high) Daily Value guide.
  2. Protein per cup, the best label clue to how much bone and connective tissue went into the broth.
  3. Ingredient list, favoring short lists of recognizable foods over added flavors and yeast extract.
  4. Format, such as large cartons for cooking versus single cups for sipping.
  5. Price, only where the brand page lists a price and the serving count.

What labels can tell you: calories, protein, sodium, ingredients and serving size. What they can’t: how much collagen or gelatin is in the broth, how long it simmered, or trace metal levels. A broth that gels in the fridge usually has more gelatin, but labels do not report that either. Where a brand labels a whole carton as one serving, we converted to cups ourselves so the numbers line up.

Sources

Craig Brockie is the founder of Ultimate Health Solutions, the company behind Ultimate Gut, and the author of Ultimate Health, The Ultimate Gut Health Guide and The Unlimited Probiotics Guide. After injuries and chronic health problems in his twenties that conventional care didn’t resolve, he began researching health on his own and has studied natural health for 30 years. He is not a medical professional, and his articles are general information, not medical advice.

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