Short answer: mix one cup of sodium-free, onion- and garlic-free beef broth with about two and a half cups of oat flour, knead it into a stiff dough, roll it out, cut it, and bake at 350°F for 25–30 minutes. Cool completely. That's the whole recipe. The part that actually matters is the broth you start with — most grocery-store broth contains onion and garlic, which are toxic to dogs.
I'm Preston Smith, co-founder of Bully Sticks Central. We've spent years making single-ingredient chews, so I have opinions about what goes into a dog treat. Here's how I'd do this one.
What kind of beef broth is safe for dogs?
Only broth with no onion, no garlic, no chives, and no added salt. This isn't a preference — onions and garlic damage a dog's red blood cells and can cause hemolytic anemia, and the ASPCA lists both as toxic to dogs (ASPCA Animal Poison Control). Powdered and concentrated forms are worse, because the dose is compressed.
Read the label on anything from the store. "Natural flavor" and "seasoning" often hide onion or garlic powder. If the ingredient list isn't specific, skip it.
Sodium is the second problem. Regular canned broth can run 800+ mg of sodium per cup, which is far more than a dog needs. Buy the unsalted version, or make your own.
Making your own beef broth
Cover beef bones with water, bring to a boil, then simmer low for 6–12 hours. Nothing else in the pot — no salt, no aromatics. Strain, chill overnight, and skim the fat cap off the top. Discard the bones. Do not feed cooked bones to your dog; they splinter, and the FDA has warned about the fractures, obstructions, and perforations they cause (FDA).
The recipe
Makes roughly 40 small biscuits.
- 1 cup beef broth (unsalted, no onion or garlic), cooled
- 2½ cups oat flour — or rolled oats run through a blender
- Optional: 1 egg, for a sturdier biscuit
- Optional: ¼ cup plain pumpkin puree or grated carrot
- Heat the oven to 350°F and line a sheet pan with parchment.
- Stir the broth into the flour until it forms a stiff dough. Add flour a tablespoon at a time if it's sticky, broth if it's crumbly.
- Roll to about ¼ inch. Cut into shapes or just score into squares with a knife.
- Bake 25–30 minutes, until firm and dry at the edges.
- Cool completely on a rack before storing.
How long do these keep?
These have no preservatives, so treat them like fresh food. Airtight at room temperature: about a week. Refrigerated: two to three weeks. Frozen: three months. If they aren't fully dry when you bag them, they'll mold — bake a few minutes longer next time, or leave them out overnight to finish drying.
Another option: pour the broth into an ice cube tray and freeze it. Broth cubes are the easiest hot-weather treat there is, and there's no baking involved.
Are homemade treats better than store-bought chews?
They're different tools. A baked biscuit is a two-second reward — good for training, good for a dog with a sensitive stomach, good because you control every ingredient.
What it doesn't do is occupy a dog. Chewing is a need, not a hobby, and a biscuit is gone before it does anything for that. That's what a long-lasting chew is for. Ours are single-ingredient and 100% real meat — no rawhide, fully digestible, and ethically sourced from grass-fed American and Argentinean farms. Bully sticks are the workhorse; trachea chews are the softer option for older dogs or lighter chewers.
Most people I talk to end up doing both: homemade biscuits for training, a real chew for the evening wind-down.
Can puppies eat these?
Yes, once they're eating solid food. Break them smaller — a puppy biscuit should be about the size of your thumbnail. Introduce one new food at a time so you can tell what's causing an upset stomach if one shows up.
Whatever you feed, treats should stay under 10% of daily calories, with the other 90% coming from a complete and balanced diet. That's the standard veterinary guideline (VCA Animal Hospitals). Homemade doesn't exempt you from the math.
A few things to skip
- Xylitol. Fatal to dogs in small amounts. It hides in peanut butter, so read the jar — more on that in our guide to peanut butter dog treats.
- Bouillon cubes. Salt and onion powder, mostly.
- Cooked bones from the stockpot. Strain them out and throw them away.
- Raisins, grapes, macadamia nuts, chocolate. All toxic (AKC).
If your dog has a health condition — kidney disease and heart disease both change how much sodium is safe — run the recipe past your vet before you start baking.
This post was last updated at August 6, 2026 23:38
