A great base to add to any number of recipes!
Vegetable stock is a great ingredient to have ready on hand for a variety of recipes. It’s savory, it’s delicious, and it punches up lots of other basic recipes. For example, something I like to do is have vegetable stock ready in my fridge when I’m making rice! Instead of using water, I fill up my rice cooker with vegetable stock and cook my rice in that liquid. That way, the rice absorbs all the delicious flavors of my stock. You can also mix a splash into mashed potatoes, use it to make sauces from scratch, or use it as a base for delicious soups and stews.
Vegetable stock might seem like something that takes a while to prepare, but it is well worth having. But why not simply buy some from the store to save time? Well, because it just tastes better homemade. Your vegetable stock made at home with fresh herbs and delicious vegetables is going to far outshine anything you can get out of a can.
The general taste of vegetable stock is mild but savory. Using your herbs is what’s going to really enhance it, since other ingredients like mushrooms, leeks, and carrots don’t have particularly strong flavors when turned into vegetable stock, in comparison to the herbs and stronger flavors in onion and garlic.
Balancing Flavor
Something I would recommend is not to use any extra carrots, so don’t get too creative with the recipe ingredients! I’ve sometimes just added extra carrots because I had a few extra and didn’t want to waste them, but this doesn’t work well. Carrots have a natural sweetness to them, so much so that they can be used to make desserts like carrot cake. If you’re going for a savory stock, you’re not going to want an overwhelming taste of sweet carrots.
FAQs & Tips
How Do I Store Leftovers?
You can store your vegetable stock in the refrigerator by putting it into jars and keeping it in your fridge for about 1 week. Alternatively, you can freeze your stock, but be sure there’s a little extra space in the jar so that the liquid has room to expand without cracking the glass. Frozen stock will last you up to 3 months.
Charred Up
An interesting trick I picked up from cooking with my mother when I was younger that elevates your vegetable stock’s flavor to something richer is to add an extra onion, but char it first in the oven. The way I do this is I quarter the onion (usually a red onion for the color) and set the oven to broil. I let the outside get slightly blackened without burning the entire onion. There’s a subtle sweetness as well as a deeper savory flavor that this charred onion will add to your stock.
Serving Suggestions
Whenever you see a recipe that calls for chicken broth or stock, you can substitute it with vegetable stock to make it vegetarian-friendly or just for a different flavor! Use it to make Baked Rice, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Minestrone Soup, or any other recipe that needs a stock.
Vegetable Stock Recipe
Ingredients Â
- 1 large onion quartered
- 3 medium carrots chopped
- 8 ounces mushrooms halved
- 2 celery ribs chopped
- 1 leek chopped (optional)
- 1 garlic bulb halved
- 5 sprigs fresh parsley
- 1 small bunch fresh thyme
- 3 bay leaves
- 2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 10 cups water
InstructionsÂ
- In a large pot, combine onions, carrots, mushrooms, celery, leek (if using), garlic, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, salt, peppercorns, and water.
- Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, reduce heat to low and simmer, loosely covered with lid vented, for 1 hour.
- After simmering, strain the stock through a fine mesh sieve, discarding the solids.
- Allow the stock to cool before transferring to storage containers. Refrigerate for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 3 months.
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