Basic Vegetable Stock


Have you noticed how expensive plain vegetable stock is in the grocery store? Making your own vegetable stock is a great way to clean out the refrigerator. Don't limit your stock making ingredients to whole vegetables. Start saving peels and trimmings while you cook. Your stock will be strained before being used, and all those unattractive peels will be gone, but they will add tons of flavor to your stock.

  • 1 large chopped onion
  • 2 or 3 large chopped carrots
  • 3 or 4 stalks celery (include the leafy top parts as well)
  • 6 to 8 chopped garlic cloves
  • 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
Other suggested vegetables (and vegetable scraps) to use are: onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, celery, carrots, mushrooms, corn (empty corn cobs can also add lots of flavor to stock), parsley, green beans, beets, bell peppers, scallions, green onions, shallots, fresh basil, thyme, cilantro, and oregano...pretty much anything.


A good rule of thumb is to have about half solid ingredients to half water. Add a tablespoon or so of ground black peppercorns and 2 bay leaves. Cover the ingredients with the water, bring to a boil and let simmer for about an hour. Cool and strain to remove all pieces of vegetables.

Use immediately for your favorite recipe, such as the Egyptian Split Pea Soup, or freeze in ice cube trays for future use. It's a great way to add a little healthy flavor to many dishes.

7 comments:

  1. Great idea. There is so much of wastage after just the average meal prep. Sustainability starts in your own kitchen! Thank you.

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  2. That seems real easy! Love the blog title. Very funny.

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  3. it s great.. btw in Turkey recently 1 kg tomato is more than 6 usd !!! i cant believe it, it was around 1 usd:((

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  4. Great start to a wonderful vegetable stock. I like to add fresh herb sprigs as well to my stocks, thyme, oregano, rosemary also add great flavor.

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  5. Broth is something that I love to make! It's so easy and so rewarding when you are making a beautiful soup and you know that you selected each ingredient that went into it! <3

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  6. I've never thought about saving my kitchen scraps for veggie stock! What a brilliant idea. I'm always making chicken stock. I'm going to have to start making veggie stock too. Thanks!

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  7. Loving this stock recipe, its one of my new years resolutions to make a stock every Monday to use for the week, thanks for the inspiration!!

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Thank you for your comments!