Make your own vegetable stock

Chicken, beef, or vegetable broth/stock is invaluable to have in your kitchen. Unfortunately, its expensive to buy--around 2 bucks for just four cups. Fortunately, you can make your own for pennies, it will taste better, and it will be all natural.

I made vegetable stock because I didn't have any thawed chicken with the bone in. At the bottom of this post I'll explain what you would do different to make chicken stock.


The week before you make your stock, you want to start saving vegetable scraps. Celery ends, celery leaves, carrot ends, onion peels, mushroom stalks, kale stalks, bell pepper tops, asparagus ends....you get it.

Ingredients: 

1. veggie scraps
2. 10-12 cups water
3. tablespoon olive oil
4. salt
5. fresh herbs (I had rosemary and bay leaf on hand)
6. thyme or any other dried herbs you like
7. garlic

Heat the oil in a soup pot. 

Get your veggie scraps out! I used green onion leaf, celery ends, celery root...

carrot, garlic...you get it! Put it in the oil in the soup pot. 

Let them sweat and stir them around a few times, for about 10 mns. It should get super fragrant. 

Now, add the water! I used two of these pitchers full--my soup pot is 8 quarts. I think. 

Add in about 4 tablespoons of salt, a tbsp of thyme, and a few bay leaves and fresh rosemary or whatever herbs you have. 

Cover, bring to a boil, then turn it down and simmer it for an hour. 

Look ee thar!

Now this part sucks--you have to strain the stuff out of the broth. I dont have the best equipment for it--I used a pasta strainer and then a splatter cover, and got a good burn on my hand. 

You should end up with some beautiful, delicious broth. 

SO GOOD. 

Store it in freezer bags and use it whenever you want to make soup. 

If you want to make chicken broth, you can do several things:

1. Use a rotisserie chicken and save the bones plus a little bit of meat. Add the bones to this broth after you add the water.

2. Save bones from chicken wings and put those in with a little meat still attached. 

3. buy a fryer chicken (its a whole chicken that is pre-cut up into parts) and boil it in water. Then remove the meat (shred it off the bone and use it in tacos or something) and add veggies to the water you boiled the chicken in.