Making Stock

Often we worry about taking stock: of our blessings, of our worries, of our fiscal health, of our physical and mental health, or just of what’s in our cabinets. Here, I’m going to talk about making stock though.

Bone broths have been shown to have great health benefits. I won’t sit here and detail them all for you, just try a quick Google, but there’s a reason mothers have been feeding their children chicken soup since time immemorial: it actually does help!

I belong to a couple healthy food groups on Facebook and I see so many questions about making stock. I also see some odd answers. So, I’m going to give you my lowdown on how to make a great and easy (and cheap) stock at home. It will save you quite a bit of money AND it will cut down on what you compost or throw away (especially the throw away bit, if, like me, you don’t yet have a compost pile).

How to I make stock? First off, I save bits and pieces I cut off of veggies. YES, this includes my greens! That’s the first thing I’ve seen people told not to save for stock but sorry, I have no issue throwing broccoli stalks in my pot to simmer for a few days. Is there a pungent smell? Yes, but you know what? It’s a healthy, earthy smell. So, whenever I make any recipe, I have a trash bowl for possibly rotted bits I cut off but primarily, I have a stock bowl to throw all the onion skins, ends of garlic, seeds, pepper membranes, kale stalks, etc. into. Those all go into a Ziploc bag in our freezer. I will even throw in any tomatoes that have gotten too bad to actually use but are not completely gross yet. So, that’s the first step.

If you want to make vegetable stock, that’s all you need. You wait until you have 1-3 gallon size bags in your freezer, throw it in your crockpot, cover with water, and turn it on low. Then I let it go for 3 days. Yep, your house will smell earthy but this has led to more than a few rumbly tummies in the middle of the night because it smells like a great vegetable soup is cooking away. Each day, check your water level and add more.

A tip I have is to use good water. I’ve spoken before about our distiller from Water Wise but I can’t say enough good things about getting all the fluoride and chlorine out of your water, plus most municipal water sources taste awful with all the pipes they run through plus the chemicals used to treat the city or county’s water source. So, for my stock, I use our distilled water so the water is clear and fresh tasting, not distorting the great vegetable flavor.

If you want bone broth, and I certainly recommend having chicken stock around all the time. You can certainly buy a whole chicken and make the stock from that, though you tend to end up wasting the meat, unless you are making a pot of tortilla soup or chicken noodle from start to finish. What I like to do instead, is use leftover bones. This does reduce the amount of fat you will have in your stock but it generally produces a very flavorful broth. I love roast chicken, so after I roast one, probably about twice a month, we save all the bones. Typically, I carve the chicken, pull all the meat off the bones, and then put the carcass in a bag in the freeze, separate from the vegetable bags. Once I’m ready to make stock, I follow the directions above but I include the chicken carcass with the vegetables and I add a cap full of apple cider vinegar to help pull the marrow out of the bones. Again, 3 days and keep an eye on the water level. You can do this with beef bones, pork bones, and I even have some duck bones sitting in our freezer for making ramen in the future.

Here’s the key, I’m generally not picky about what vegetables go in the stock. As I said, greens, onions, carrot tops, whatever we have that was left over and otherwise would have ended up in our trash will go in our stock. So, don’t be afraid. I have not yet experienced any single vegetable that has overwhelmed the broth after the fact.

After the 3 days are over, I strain everything through a mesh strainer and into a stainless steel bowl (or whatever you have that’s big enough to hold all that beautiful, amber hued broth. Discard the vegetables and bones at this time. You can salt and pepper the broth at this time. You don’t have to. I generally don’t. I put the completely unseasoned broth in wide mouth mason jars and stick it all in our deep freezer with the type of stock and the date made written on the lid.

That’s it! There’s not a whole lot of mystery to it and there are really no hard and fast rules. Definitely better than something like Swanson stock and you control what’s in it, most important being the salt content. I generally salt it when I’m ready to use it, so I can taste it with all the other ingredients, whether it is soup, curry, or any other dish. If you read the labels on boxed or canned stock in the store, the sodium levels may blow your mind and that’s not good for your heart! Since you are using ingredients that were previously purposed, this method for making stock doesn’t cost you anything, so it is truly a beneficial impact on your grocery budget.

Recipe

• 1-3 gallon bags of excess veggie bits (onion skins and ends, carrot tops, celery ends, garlic ends, stalks of greens, etc)
• Distilled or purified water, approximately 16 cups depending on size of your crockpot
• 1-2 chicken carcasses

Put all into crockpot. Cover. Turn on low and simmer for 3 days. Check water levels to ensure it has not all evaporated. Strain through wire mesh. Pour into pint or quart size wide mouth mason jars. Store in freezer in individual serving sizes once cooled.

*Do not overfill mason jars. There is typically a freeze fill line. Overfilled jars are likely to burst in the freezer. You can also use plastic containers.