Vegetable Stock

The first step to making vegetable stock is saving all your vegetable and herb scraps. You can freeze them or keep them in the fridge, if you’ll be using them within a few days. When you get a gallon bag of scraps, that should be enough. Even if you put them in the freezer, you can add to the bag until it’s full.

I like to use a variety of vegetables, whatever scraps I have… leek leaves, garlic/onion roots and skins + that tough outer layer, carrot peels, celery leaves and tops, zucchini peels/ends, etc. The possibilities are endless. I will cut onions and garlic just to include them in my stock. You don’t have to use the actual parts of the vegetables you will eat, but you can.

Fill a pot of water 3/4 of the way with water. Then set as large a metal colander or steaming basket in the pot of water as will fit. Fill the colander/basket with your scraps and cover the colander with your pot lid (it probably won’t be a perfect fit).

Bring to a boil. Once it’s boiling, turn down to low and simmer for several hours. At this point, you could also allow the stock to cool and then transfer to a large crockpot. I usually just leave it on the stove.

When your broth is a rich color, take the colander out, making sure to hold it over the pot until it is finished draining. Do NOT discard the scraps.

Your vegetable stock is ready to use.

Repeat this process until the vegetable scraps are no longer fragrant when cooking. One gallon of scraps should be good for several pots of stock. When they’re depleted, if you’ve not used or oil or anything like that, you can compost them.

If not using stock right away, I freeze in ice cube trays, and then put one tray of cubes per foodsaver bag.