Home Made Vegetable Stock

I always hated throwing away the unused vegetable scraps acquired through cooking, but we don't have the space or the need to compost, so I felt I had no other choice.

Then I read a comment on somebody's blog about broccoli stems and saving them in the freezer until enough was collected to make soup. Duh! It hit me like a bolt of lightning! I could just save all my scraps in the freezer until enough are collected to make something useful!

That was about three months ago. I was up to 3 gallon freezer bags of scraps when I decided to make stock.

According to my Food Lover's Companion: "In the most basic terms, stock is the strained liquid that is the result of cooking vegetables, meat or fish and other seasoning ingredients in water."


I threw the three bags' worth of vegetables into my big ass pot. I had quite a collection since I'd been saving everything! The ends of onions, broccoli and cauliflower stems, carrot peels and tips, celery ends, pepper guts, bean tips, etc. All of it goes into the pot, as is!

Fill the pot with water to the top of the vegetables. At this point I also added a few herbs on their last leg (sage leaves and parsley), some veggies floating around the fridge from December (!!), as well as a big handful of garlic cloves.

Just put a lid on it, bring to a boil, and let it work its magic for 2 or 3 hours. Check on it periodically to see if it needs more liquid added.

After one hour.

After two hours. At this point I added two tablespoons of Kosher salt.


After three hours.

Remove from heat and strain through a fine mesh strainer into a heat-proof container. Make sure to press down on the vegetables to release all of the liquid hiding out inside!! My pile of used vegetables was reduced to about 1/3 of what I started with. It felt really good to see such spent veggies, knowing I had taken advantage of literally everything they had to give!

I used a large measuring pitcher with a spout for convenience and to keep track of how much it made. The final product was an aromatic flavorful stock, but I kept it a little on the bland side. I wanted a neutral flavor profile I could doctor up in future recipes instead of the stock making each dish made with it taste the same.

All in all it made thirty cups of stock (or about 2 gallons)!! I'm really pleased with the outcome. It felt terrific to make so much out of scraps that would ordinarily be tossed out. I also know it is full of a bunch of vitamins and nutrients, and healthy with only two tablespoons of salt since I was able to control what went in.

I let it cool in large bowls and then poured into a few quart sized deli containers and quart sized freezer bags before going in the freezer. These convenient sizes will let me grab just enough to make a dish in the future. By making this home made stock a few times a year I can use up all of my scraps and make healthier meals for just the cost of a few tablespoons of salt!

Don't forget to enter and spread the word about my Red Gold tomatoes giveaway before next Wednesday, February 17th!