Free Vegetable Stock

Free Vegetable Stock

Every ingredient that you put into this stock is completely free.  You don’t have to buy anything to have a nutritious and delicious vegetable stock.  The only thing that is required is a tiny bit of your time.

I recently discovered this idea from a health magazine that suggested putting every vegetable scrap, peel, end, skin, etc.  into a gallon freezer bag and storing it in the freezer until the bag is full. 

You then take your bag of miscellaneous vegetable scraps and literally dump it into a stock pot, fill the pot with water, add some extra herbs and/or salt and pepper to taste if desired and boil away on medium low for 3 – 6 hours. 

We prefer the longer boil because this allows all of the flavors from the vegetable scraps to really come out in the stock.

When the stock is done, use a colander to drain it into another pot.  Compost or throw out the remaining vegetables, allow your stock to cool and pour into containers to use when desired. 

We often store our stock in 4 cup plastic containers and keep them in the freezer.  They can be used to prepare a variety of soups and stews.  The stock can also be used as a simple, delicious hot beverage on its own. 

One of the most fun parts of the free vegetable stock is that no stock is ever the same. 

If you have asparagus, broccoli, brussel sprout ends and sweet potato peels, with onion and garlic skins one week, that stock will be very different than your kale and chard stems with fennel ends, radish, turnip and potato peels for example. 

There are no wrong vegetables in this stock and there is no end to the possibilities. 

Have fun with it and enjoy the process of using up every part of your vegetables while creating an amazing stock!