Recipe Idea: Homemade Vegetable Stock Better For You
Hi. It’s Lois in the kitchen at Recipe Idea Shop, talking about Homemade Vegetable Stock (Broth). Recently, I read an interesting suggestion in Vegetarian Times…or maybe it was Cooking Light. Anyway, an author suggested keeping a freezer bag in your freezer to throw vegetable pieces in. It said to include the peels, skins, cut-off ends, little bits of vegetables you couldn’t use in your current recipe, and all those veggies you buy that go (almost) bad before you use them. Of course, you don’t wait until they go bad to throw them in the bag. Then you just pull out the bag, dump the frozen veggies and peels in a pot of water and boil them. Strain the veggies out, and voila! you have delicious no-salt, gluten-free better-for-you vegetable broth to use in all your recipes.
I saved a gallon-sized Ziplock freezer bag full of vegetables, peels, skins, etc., and dumped them in a 6-quart Dutch oven. I then filled the pot with water and boiled the veggies for about 1/2 an hour. I strained the vegetables out, and poured the stock into one-quart freezer bags and froze the packages. Now I can pull them out and use them as I need them. Another option is to freeze the stock in ice-cube trays. Then you have small amounts of stock to flavor recipes!

Left over pieces of vegetables waiting to be made into Homemade Vegetable Stock. (This is what I have right now in my freezer to make into Vegetable Stock.)
I think this is the best idea I have read in ages! The stock is delicious, gluten-free, salt-free, and easy to use. Give it a try.
Now that I am not wasting vegetables, I feel so frugal. Read on for specifics…
- 1 gallon of mixed vegetable peels, pieces
- 6 cups water
- Dump the vegetables into a Dutch Oven or soup pot
- Add the water.
- Bring the mixture to a boil.
- Reduce the temperature to a simmer.
- Simmer for 30 minutes or more.
- Strain the vegetables from the stock and throw them away or compost them.
- Freeze the stock in small amounts to use later.[br][url href=”https://recipeideashop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/RIS_LOGO-22-e1436274250987.jpg”][img src=”https://recipeideashop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/RIS_LOGO-22-e1436274250987.jpg” width=”300″ height=”62″ class=”alignleft size-full” title=”RIS_LOGO-2″][/url]
What a great idea! I think I did this decades ago when I had a garden, but of course there’s no reason not to do it with things from the grocery store too. When I cook or buy a roasted chicken, I always throw the carcass in a pot with an cut up onion and a couple of stalks of celery, maybe a carrot or two, and make my own chicken stock. I’ve always frozen it in Mason jars, but the ice cube tray idea is brilliant.
I love your chicken stock idea.