How to make vegetable stock

Vegetables boiled in water. Yep, that’s all it is, easy peasy.

Making your own vegetable stock at home is one of the fundamental kitchen processes that you just have to do now and again. It’s so easy, it doesn’t use up much time and it’s basically impossible to overcook. And if you have left over vegetables, peering over the edge of the compost, it’s a super efficient use of them before they go.

Now, although there are some traditional staples used to make vegetable stock, such as carrots and onions, you can actually use whatever you want. Just remember that the vegetables you use will have an effect on the flavour, colour and clarity of your final broth. So beetroot and potato will give you a red, cloudy stock, whereas onion and carrot gives you a relatively clear stock.

However, the basic principle remains the same, whatever you use, you just need to boil the vegetables in water for an hour, and that’s it.

The recipe for vegetable stock that I’ve used here is quite well rounded, the mushrooms and tomato could be considered an optional extra so really aren’t necessary, but they do add a little bit of extra body.

And it’s yet another ingredient that freezes beautifully, just remember to divide it up into useable sized portions, like 250ml before you stick it in the freezer!

How to Make Vegetable Stock

By Gavin Wren

Makes 1.5l
Takes about 1 hour 15 minutes
Uses 1 pot

PDF recipe card to download or print

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large carrot, roughly chopped
1 onion, rougly chopped
1 leek, roughly chopped
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
75g mushrooms

1.5l water
1 large tomato, quartered
1 bouquet garni of 3 x parsley stalks, 2 x thyme stalks, 2 x bay leaves
1 teaspoon peppercorns

Directions

Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium heat.

Add the carrot, onion, leek, celery, garlic and mushrooms and fry for 5 minutes.

Add the water, tomato, bouquet garni and peppercorns, cover and bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour.

After an hour, strain the liquid into a bowl through a fine sieve, discarding the boiled vegetables.

Your stock is ready to use!

What is a bouquet garni?

A bouquet garni is a generic term for a bunch of herbs, tied together, so that they can be added to a dish at the cooking stage to impart their flavour and then be removed prior to serving. Although it is often based around parsley, thyme and bay, there is no standard ‘recipe’ for bouquet garni, it is at the cook’s discretion to determine which herbs go into it, dependent on their taste and the dish’s requirements.