Vegetable stock is a nutritious liquid made with vegetables and scraps of vegetables that serves as the base for soups and dals.
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What is Vegetable Stock?
Vegetable stock is flavourful golden liquid used in preparation of soups, stews or sauces derived by simmering vegetables and vegetable scraps in water.
The typical vegetables used in homemade vegetable stocks are onions, garlic, carrots; broccoli florets stems and leaves; cauliflower florets, stems and leaves, ; mushrooms caps and stems or any vegetable scraps available to you. You can also increase the flavour profile by adding spices like cinnamon, cloves and bay leaves.
Vegetable Stock also goes by the name of vegetable broth.
You can use your vegetable stock to prepare any soups, stews, or in case of Indian cuisine – any dal or rasam too.
Ingredients for Vegetable Stock
This is the easiest recipe that you will ever make. You just need a large pot of water and lots of vegetables.
In culinary tradition, people have prepared broths or stocks with a medley of meat scraps, bones, and residual vegetables, forming the foundation of soups or stews. However, given the substantial population of vegetarians in India, I have adapted this recipe to cater to our dietary preferences. We can combine an array of vegetables and spices and prepare a flavorful broth that both honors tradition and embraces the essence of vegetarianism.
Here is the list of ingredients you can add to your vegetable broth.
Vegetables to add to your stock
- – Onions and onion peels (if the peels are clean). In India, the peels aren’t usually clean, but you may use them once washed.
- – Garlic cloves and peels
- – Carrots and carrot peels
- – Cauliflower florets, stems, and leaves
- – Broccoli florets, stems, and leaves
- – Potato and potato peels
- – Mushroom caps and stems
- – Corn and Corb cobs
- – Celery stalks and leaves
Vegetables to avoid in your broth
- – Tomatoes – They will become too soft and might render a sour taste to the broth.
- – Gourds can become too soft and bitter in the broth, particularly the bitter gourd. You may also avoid the entire gourd family for preparing stocks.
- – Radish – While radishes make an excellent addition for sambar, you avoid it in your stock.
- – Beets – You can use beets if you want a red-coloured stock, but it is best avoided.
- – Lady fingers/ Okra – These slimy vegetables are best used in curries, you may leave them out of stocks.
- – Brinjal/Eggplant
- – Zucchini
- – Green Beans
If you feel that some vegetables scraps are dirty, please wash them before using them for the broth.
Spices you can add to the veg stock
Using whole spices to the broth adds more flavour and makes the broth a lot more nutritious. Some spices that you can use are :-
- – Bay Leaves
- – Cinnamon Sticks
- – Cloves
- – Pepper corns
- – Thyme stalks
Depending on the cuisine you select for your meal, you may include or exclude ingredients. For instance, when planning for Asian cuisine, you can enhance the stock’s flavor by adding ginger, galangal, and/or kaffir lime leaves. These ingredients impart the essential flavors required to create a variety of spicy Asian soups.
How to make Vegetable Stock at home?
Prep Work
Start off by picking out all the vegetables and scraps that you are planning to use. Before using them for the stock, wash them thoroughly and make sure none of them have sediment or have gone bad.
Further, if you are using onions, especially in India, since we only get onions that are stored for a long time, they tend to have a black covering inside the fist peel. Once you peel the first dry layer of the onion, wash them thoroughly and only then use them.
If you have been saving peel of carrots and potatoes, wash them and keep aside. Then again, if you are using mushrooms, be sure to remove the black sediment that usually coats them.
Cut all the vegetables and scraps into smaller pieces if they are bigger than the pot.
The next step is to find a heavy-bottomed pan. You may even use a pressure cooker without the lid to prepare the vegetable stock.
Next, fill the pan with about 90% filtered water. You need this 10% space to hold all the vegetables and scraps.
The boiling and straining process
Put the pan on a high flame and add all the vegetables and vegetable scraps you have chosen for this broth.
From now, allow the water to be in a constant state of boil along with all the vegetables and scraps. Around the 25 minute mark, you might see a slightly golden tinge to the broth.
When the quantity of water is reduced to half of what you started with, the stock is ready. If you start with a small pot of water, the stock will be ready in 30 minutes; however, if you begin with a large pot of water, it may take more time.
When the water has a nice golden colour, the stock is ready. Turn off the flame and allow the rolling boil to settle down.
As soon as the water has settled, strain the water and the now softened vegetables into a large container to collect the golden coloured broth.
If you are going to use it right away, you need not allow the broth to cool down. If you are planning to use it later, allow the stock to cool down to room temperature before you add it to a clean glass container.
Shelf Life and Storage
You can store vegetable stock in the fridge in a clean glass bottle for up to a week.
If you wish to store them for longer, you can pour the stock water into ice cube trays. Once the ice cubes set, take them out of the mold and put the Vegetable Stock cubes in a ziplock bag. You can store these cubes for up to six months in the freezer.
FAQ
- Adding salt to the stock at any stage is unnecessary. When preparing soups, it’s most effective to utilize the stock as-is and incorporate salt as needed later on.
- Veg broth prepared at home does not need gelatin or any thickening ingredients.
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Recipe
Vegetable Stock
Ingredients
- 4 cups Water or a potful
- 2 cups Vegetables and Vegetable Scraps
- 2-3 Bay leaves
- 1 stick Cinnamon
- 2-3 Cloves
Instructions
- Take a large heavy bottom pot full of water and place it on high heat. We should fill the pot 90% of the way, leaving room for vegetables on top.
- Add all the vegetables, vegetable scraps and spices. Please find a master list of suggestions in the earlier part of this post.
- Allow the water and the vegetables to come to a rolling boil and let it be on boil for a minumum of 30 minutes.
- You know that the stock is ready when the quantity of water has reduced in half and the water is a light golden colour.
- Strain the vegetables from the stock and use this nutritous Vegetable stock for any soups, rasam or dal.
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