While commercial vegetable stock serves its purpose, I have yet to find one that I really like. So I finally decided to make my own. Not only is it delicious, but it costs virtually nothing to make! Talk about frugal. Use it when you cook rice, lentils or beans.

Because we eat so many vegetarian, vegan and Mediterranean meals, I can collect enough scraps from one week of cooking to make my Homemade Vegetable Stock. All I need to add in are bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns and water. I might choose, as I did this time, to add in a big handful of fresh parsley and cilantro or dill, 5 garlic cloves and one tomato. Sometimes I might add a strip or two of fresh lemon peel. Generally I choose to not add salt to my broth. I add salt when I am using it in a dish.

If you know specifically what you will be using it for, you can also decide to season the stock to suit the dish you will be making, thereby layering in the flavors.

When I prep my meals, instead of throwing away the carrot or potato peels, I stash them in a gallon freezer bag. If I think I will be making the stock that week, I simply refrigerate the scraps and add to them all week until the bag is filled. If I am not making stock that week, I throw the bag into the freezer and add to it that way.

Most vegetable scraps can be used but there are some that I do not keep, like cucumber, asparagus and beets. You can use beets if you don’t mind that it will color your stock. Some people claim that cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, onion skins and kale can make your stock bitter, but I have not found that to be the case. I won’t use those veggies in great number, but I do use them.

Vegetables that you definitely want to include are: leeks, potatoes, carrot, celery, herbs, mushroom stems. You can also use corn, green beans, skins of squash, zucchini and peppers. Which of those I use depends on what we ate during the week. The stock will be strained so don’t get too precious with your collections.

The Homemade Vegetable Stock only cooks for an hour and then you allow it to cool. Once it is cool enough to handle, strain it through a fine mesh strainer and voila! THE BEST vegetable stock you will ever taste and only pennies (do you remember what those are?) to make. Use it in your next pot of soup or stew or even pasta sauce. And, of course, this can be frozen, but it will keep refrigerated for at least a week.

There is no strict recipe, but here is my guide:

RECIPE

Yield: About 3.5 to 5 quarts (You could, of course make a smaller amount. And your total will depend on the size of your pot and how much water you ultimately add. I like to stuff my pot with veggie scraps etc. and then cover everything with water. I don’t truly measure.)

INGREDIENTS

1 gallon freezer bag’s worth of vegetable scraps

1 medium tomato

4 to 5 garlic cloves, halved

A handful of fresh herbs – stems and all

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon each: peppercorns and whole cloves

Water

DIRECTIONS

In a 6-quart or larger soup pot or Dutch Oven, place all of the veggies, herbs and spices. Cover with water.

Cover the pot tightly and bring everything to a boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for one hour. You don’t want to cook this much longer since it might encourage bitterness in the broth.

Allow the stock to cool until you can easily handle the pot. Then strain everything through a fine mesh strainer, discarding all of the solids. They have done their job and deserve their rest.

Unless you are using the stock immediately, refrigerate it or freeze it for later use. You can also consider freezing some in ice cube trays to use when only a little bit of a good stock or broth is called for. If only all things in life could be this easy and give such a big, satisfying bang for the buck!