Dear Internet,

I always get a kick out of the reaction my friends and family have when I tell them I make my own stock. I’ll admit it sounds like level three stuff, but the truth is — making stock is pretty basic. It also happens to be a great way to practice “no waste” cooking. It is so simple that I have a mantra in my kitchen, “Always be making stock!”

To be clear — I’m defining “no waste” cooking as setting aside the non-edible components of a main item I’ve cooked, such as beef short ribs, and pairing them later with mirapoix, herbs, spices and water to make the liquid gold of my kitchen [otherwise known as stock].

A few of examples of putting this concept to practice:

Bones from beef short ribs or cooking water from a slow cooked large cut of meat like brisket CAN BECOME beef stock
Bones and other scraps from a whole roasted chicken [like the grab and go ones from your grocery store hot case] CAN BECOME chicken stock
Bones from baby back ribs or cooking water from a slow cooked large cut of meat like pork shoulder CAN BECOME pork stock
Shells from lobster or crab or scraps from fish fillets CAN BECOME seafood stock
Dried mushrooms or cheese from rinds like parmesan CAN BECOME vegetarian stock

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I typically freeze the stock and then use it to enhance dishes like risotto or to create a dish all on its own such as soup. Using stock is such a critical part of my cooking that in classic SERVE or RESERVE fashion — you will be certain to find at least 5-10 frozen varieties in my freezer at any given time.

If you have been making your own stock, I would love to know your best practices. If you haven’t been doing it and are willing to give it a try, I’ve outlined the directions below.

Happy SooN COOKING,

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Suggested Hardware

Stock Pot
Electric Pressure Cooker [Instant Pot]
Mesh colander
Cole & Mason Salt and Pepper Grinder Set
Ziploc Bags or silicone storage bags
Ice cube mold

Ingredients

Your choice “no waste” ingredients [chicken bones, beef bones, lobster shells, cheese rinds, dried mushrooms]
1 tsp salt [~10 turns on the grinder]
1 tsp Pepper [~10 turns on the grinder]
1 Bay Leaf
3 sprigs or 1 tsp of Thyme
2 sprigs or 1 tsp of Oregano
2 sprigs of Rosemary
3 cloves of Garlic
2 cups of Mirapoix
at least 6-quarts of Water

Other Critical Information

This is a SooN COOKING Essential Kitchen Technique™ recipe. It will give you an overview of how to do this recipe so that you can get a foundational understanding for how to master this skill. SooN COOKING Essential Kitchen Techniques do not apply to SooN for KIDS & SooN for ONE variations. All other variations are included following the SooN ORIGINAL recipe.

New to SooN Cooking?

No problem! Some quick background on the concept: I love to cook and realized that I often had to adjust my meal plan to accomodate for for my friends and family with dietary requirements when they joined me for a meal. More often than not, I didn’t know how to modify my recipe to address their dietary needs which launched me into some deep research and left me with a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt that I was preparing the recipe the right way for my guest. A concept that I now call Meal Planning FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). To combat Meal Planning FUD each of my recipes has eight variations which covers everything from vegetarian to Kosher to gluten-free so that you can cut the Meal Planning FUD out of your life and feel comfortable serving the recipe to a variety of guests.

Check out the SooN Cooking About page for the complete details.

Choose your SooN ADVENTURE™

SooN COOKING Original

#1: assemble the ingredients and pick a stock path

First off, I typically start my stock making journey by traveling down one of these two paths:

Path A: Following another recipe which produced inedible scraps/leftovers that are perfect for transforming into stock. If I’m on this path, I would now move onto #2: make your stock.

Path B: Freeze the scraps/leftovers from the recipe [that I made in the first example] for later use. On this path, the scraps/leftovers typically stay in frozen reserves until needed — which at that point I would move onto #2: make your stock.

A tangible example of this path would be, for instance, if I steamed four fresh lobsters for dinner. [Honestly, for fresh lobster it would have to be a very “special” dinner, like New Year’s Eve]. After dinner, I would check my freezer inventory to count the number of frozen LOBSTER STOCK servings I already had. [I aim to have at least two of each variety at all times.] If I had enough frozen LOBSTER STOCK servings on hand, then I would just throw all the shells from the lobsters I just had for dinner in a Ziploc and freeze those as is.

So now prentend that I wanted to make LOBSTER BISQUE for dinner and found that there were not enough LOBSTER STOCK servings in my freezer to proceed with this dinner plan [note: Lobster Bisque is definately level three stuff so this would have to be another “special” dinner, like Jason’s birthday]. I would then pull out the frozen lobster shells [that I saved from the example meal in Path A] and move onto #2: make your stock.

#2: make your stock

Have you ever heard someone refer to the largest pot in the kitchen as a “stock pot”? Here is why!!!! Start by grabbing your largest pot [which is hopefully 8-quarts or more]. Now literally throw all the ingredients into the pot and cover it with water and add the pot lid. Bring it to a boil. Once the liquid is boiling, turn it to low and then wait. I typically let the stock cook until the liquid level has reduced by half. A tangible example of this concept is to say that in your 8-quart pot you start with 7-quarts of liquid — stop after the water reaches the 3.5-quarts level. This can take anywhere from 4-6 hours.

Important note: you should eyeball the whole “reduced by half” stopping point. If things have been cooking for 5 hours and you have to go pickup your daughter from soccer, it will be completely fine if the liquid at this point only reduced by 45% instead of 50%.

#3: extract your stock

Remove the pot from heat and let everything cool for at least 15 minutes. Then use the mesh colander to separate the liquid gold [stock] from the all the other ingredients. Discard all the other ingredients.

#4: store, seal, label and freeze for later use

Once the stock is finished, follow this two-part SERVE or RESERVE storage process:

Part One | Ziploc: divide 3/4 of it up into quart size Ziploc bags. Use the Ziploc stock as a soup base or to add extra flavor to a main dish like RISOTTO or CHILI.

Part Two | Stock Cubes: Place the remaining 1/4 of it into the ice cube mold trays. Use the ice cube stock to add flavor to PAN-SEARED CHICKEN or to make a SIMPLE PAN SAUCE to elevate GRILLED STEAK.

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SooN COOKING Express

This variation is my preferred method for stock because it is the most efficient. First, I use an Instant Pot because it enables me to walk away after throwing everything together. If you don’t have an Instant Pot but see yourself adopting this technique long term, you will get a fast return on your investment if you choose to purchase one.

Step #1: from the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL recipe applies.

For step #2: make your stock: Throw all your ingredients into the Instant Pot and select “manual”. Now set the timer to “max” [which is 120 minutes]. Full transparency — I typically make stock in the Instant Pot at night. I’ll throw everything in and then head to bed. Therefore, I’m usually sleeping when the cooking cycle completes but since the Instant Pot will automatically switch to “keep warm” mode, it will rest for the rest of the night. I then wake up to beautiful stock in the morning!

From here, I follow the same directions in #3 and #4 of the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL recipe.

The best news about using an Instant Pot to make stock is that NONE of the liquid escapes. So while in in the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL recipe your goal is to reduce your liquid by half, with this method — 100% of the liquid becomes stock!

SooN COOKING Vegetarian

For vegetarian stock I’ll either make MUSHROOM STOCK [from dried mushrooms which I typically buy in bulk at Costco] or PARMESEAN STOCK [from the rinds of cheese that I have thrown in the freezer until it is time to transform them into liquid gold]. You could also throw a mix of vegetables [such as tomatoes, squash, eggplant] in with all the other ingredients but I find the other two varieties to be all that I need in a vegetarian dish.

Once you have picked your vegetarian stock path — the steps in either the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL or the SooN COOKING EXPRESS recipes will work.

Not familiar with a Vegetarian diet? Learn more using the SooN LIVING Dietary Requirements Decoder.

SooN COOKING Kosher

Make sure to use Kosher certified products when serving any dishes that use stock to someone who keeps Kosher. Once you have picked your stock path — the steps in either the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL or the SooN COOKING EXPRESS recipes will work.

Not familiar with a Kosher diet? Learn more using the SooN LIVING Dietary Requirements Decoder.

SooN COOKING Halal

Make sure to use Halal certified products when serving when serving any dishes that use stock to someone who keeps Halal. Once you have picked your stock path — the steps in either the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL or the SooN COOKING EXPRESS recipes will work.

Not familiar with a Halal diet? Learn more using the SooN LIVING Dietary Requirements Decoder.

SooN COOKING Celiac

Make sure none of the ingredients used to make the stock have gluten in them. Once you have picked your stock path — the steps in either the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL or the SooN COOKING EXPRESS recipes will work.

Not familiar with a Celiac diet? Learn more using the SooN LIVING Dietary Requirements Decoder.

SooN COOKING as a Photo Essay

#1: assemble the ingredients and pick a stock path

Path A: Make stock following another recipe. Inedible beef short rib scraps/leftovers shown here.

Path B: Make stock from frozen scraps/leftovers. Inedible lobster shells shown here.

#2: make your stock

Assemble your ingredients. (Parmesean stock shown here).

Add water and cook.

Cook until the liquid has reduced by half or 120 minutes in the Instant Pot (shown here).

#3: Extract Your Stock

Strain liquid with a mesh strainer. (Beef stock shown here.)

Discard all other ingredients, congratulations on your liquid gold! (Parmesean stock shown here.)

#4: store, seal, label and freeze for later use

Divide 3/4 of it up into quart size Ziploc bags to use as a base in main dishes.

Place the remaining 1/4 of it into the ice cube mold trays.

Use the stock cubes to add extra flavor or to make a finishing sauce.

Label and freeze for later use.

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Feedback? Input? Questions?

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2 Comments

Lisa Myers on February 15, 2019 at 10:42 am

These photos are beautiful. I never fully appreciated the value of stock. I am sold!
Reply
- Elisha Herzog on February 16, 2019 at 12:13 am
  
  Happy to hear that Lisa, thank you! I cannot wait to hear how it goes when you make some!
  Reply