Easy Homemade Vegetable Stock

Homemade vegetable stock = literally the easiest thing ever.

The hardest part is remembering to keep vegetable scraps and throw them in the freezer. All in one big freezer bag. Once you start, it gets easier. It's just remembering those first couple of times.

See...back in the day, I used to reply on recipes on the interwebs that told me I needed a whole onion, a whole leek, whole carrots, etc. etc. etc. in order to make a delicious stock. And while those whole ingredients may make the stock richer (maybe?), making use of vegetable scraps that usually just end up in the garbage still yielded a divine pot of stock. Not wasting perfectly usable food + having a much better ingredient (with much less sodium) than the store-bought versions is a win-win in my book.

Here's how easy stock is to make:

Step 1: Save any and all vegetable scraps over the course of a few weeks, or until you have a large freezer bag (at least) full. Some items I saved: onion "butts" and skins; carrot greens and tops; herbs that were only a day or two from going bad, but were still good enough to save; asparagus bottoms (the ones you snap off and discard, typically); and so on. Really, any vegetable scrap you have leftover...save it! It will only add more flavor to your stock.

Step 2: Once you have a large freezer bag full of the good stuff, it's time to make your stock. Rinse all of the frozen vegetable "leftovers," and then place them in a large soup pot. Cover the vegetables with water (the less water you add, the more rich your stock will be, but just be sure the water covers the vegetables by at least one inch regardless). Season liberally with salt and black pepper.

Step 3: Bring the pot to a boil; reduce heat to simmer and let simmer for one hour (it can go even longer if you'd like it to; more time will only make it taste better!).

Step 4: Take the pot off the stove. Set your strainer over a big bowl and line it with cheese cloth or coffee filters. Pour the stock through. Divide the stock into storage containers, cool completely, and then freeze (or refrigerate, if using within a day or two).

See how easy that is??

Here's some soup inspiration for when your stock is ready:

-Vegan Where's the Beef? Stew
-Detox Vegetable Soup
-Spiced Chickpea and Quinoa Soup