Simple Stock

Stock is water that has been boiled with meat or vegetables in it and may be lightly seasoned. It is a way to add flavor and depth to many recipes, and it's also a great way to reduce food waste. It also means that you may not have to buy broth or stock at the store anymore; my homemade stock has replaced canned broth in nearly all of my cooking.

The way that I make stock requires having a bit of a plan and changing some of your habits in the kitchen, but is very simple once you've gotten into the rhythm of making it regularly.

Cooking Confidence Scale Score

High 1 to Low 2 Stock is large but not hard. All that you're doing is boiling a big pot of stuff, scooping out the solids, and adding a little bit of seasoning and salt. The skills involved are boiling water, straining liquids, stirring, and pouring.

Time Commitment

Prep time: ten minutes to several weeks, depending on how you're getting the vegetables for this.
Stove time: 2 hours
Straining and ladling time: 20 minutes

Total: 2hr 30 minutes +/- time to save up vegetables.

Tools

Freezer Storage Bag(s)
Permanent Marker (optional, for labeling bags)
Stock Pot (I use a 12 quart pot with a fitted strainer pot)
Strainer
Ladle
Storage containers for Stock

Ingredients

Vegetable Trimmings or whole vegetables
Bay Leaves (two per gallon of liquid; if using under a gallon use one large bay leaf)
Salt
Water

Important Ratios

Scraps:Water = 1:2 - if you have one gallon of scraps you will use two gallons of water; if you have two quarts of scraps, you will use four quarts of water.
Salt:Water 1tsp:2qt - if you have one gallon of scraps you will use two gallons of water; two gallons of water is eight quarts, you will use 4tsp (1tbsp plus 1tsp) salt.

Cooking Instructions

Collecting your Scraps

I make stock out of saved kitchen scraps. Mostly this is things like wilty celery, mushrooms that will go bad before I can use them, the ends of onions, carrot peelings, etc. Every time I cook something that requires me to use vegetables, I throw the trimmings of the vegetables (like the woody end of asparagus and the tops of celery) into a 1 gallon storage bag that I keep in my freezer. If I have vegetables that are going to go bad, I prep them and put them into the freezer bag instead of putting them in the compost heap or the trash.

I actually have two bags in my freezer, one for veggie stock and one for meat stock; the meat stock bag gets vegetable trimmings too, but it also gets trimmed bacon fat, various bones, chicken skin, and any other meat scraps that pop up when I'm cooking. The meat stock is prepared in exactly the same way as the veggie stock but requires the standard handling safety practices as you would use with any raw meat. If you're not comfortable handling raw meat, just stick with veggie stock.

You can also make stock from fresh vegetables that you purchase for that purpose if you want to have the stock for flavor, but I find it much more convenient to simply make stock when I've got the scraps to do so and store it for convenient use.

How much to collect

Collect scraps until you have a full freezer bag. Because I have a large stock pot, I use a 1-gallon bag. Your frozen scraps should take up about one third of your stock pot, so if you have a six quart pot you should have two one-quart bags full of scraps.

Cooking

Add your water, bay leaves, salt, and frozen scraps to the pot.
Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce to a low simmer.
Simmer for two hours.

Straining

Once your stock is hot but no longer boiling, use a strainer to separate the solids from the liquids. In a large pot, this is best accomplished by straining the solids out; in a smaller pot you may have more success by pouring your stock through a strainer into another container.

Storing

Stock will keep for a week in the refrigerator and pretty much indefinitely while frozen. I ladle my stock into cleaned 16oz sour cream containers then stack them in my freezer. If you are freezing the stock, remember to leave room for expansion; water expands by 9% when it freezes, so you want to leave yourself at least 10% of your container as expansion space. I put a little over 12oz of liquid into each 16oz container just to make sure that it won't end up overflowing the container as it freezes.

Use

Homemade stock is a great addition to soups, rice, and roasts. It's a decent base for gravy, and is a soothing warm drink if you're sick. You can use it to replace water in many savory recipes for an extra flavorful final dish. Because the stock is salted, make sure to adjust any recipes to taste when you are using stock.