Homemade Stock: What's Your Routine?

In his latest book Ratio, Michael Ruhlman makes a very strong argument for passing on the store-bought stuff and making your own stock at home. He says (and then repeats again and again), "So much of great cooking and soulful dishes begins with stock, the extraction, distillation, and concentration of flavor." It's true. We know it's true. So why don't we do it?

I'm pretty sure the answer is "habit." Even though many of us roast whole chickens almost monthly, it's just not part of our routine to make stock from the bones. Thinking about devoting a whole afternoon to simmering, cooling, and packaging stock for the freezer feels laborious and far less exciting than, well, anything else we could be doing.

After some soul-searching, I'm finally ready to admit that I've been making excuses and it's time to settle into a regular routine of making my own stock. Here are some key tips and reminders I'm using to get myself motivated:

• Stock is just as good from one chicken as it is from several: Until now, I'd been telling myself that it wasn't worth making stock unless I made a lot of it - meaning from several chicken carcasses at once. I'd been keeping bones frozen in the freezer until I'd theoretically collected enough for a batch of stock, but where I would usually forget about them for months.

Ruhlman points out that stock is just another ratio. You can make a small batch from just one chicken carcass, covered with water, and some aromatics thrown in.

• Break it into several days: It's much easier for me - and probably for a lot of us - to find small chunks of free time rather than a whole afternoon. After a chicken dinner, the carcass can go in the fridge and stock can be made any time in the next few days. I can also refrigerate the finished stock for a day or two until I find time to break it into smaller containers for the freezer.

• Stock doesn't require a lot of attention: I keep thinking that I have to devote a whole afternoon to babysitting a pot of simmering stock. But really, once the initial prep work is done, the pot can sit on a back burner (or even at low heat in the oven) without a lot of supervision. I still have to be in the house to keep an eye on things, but I can do other things with my afternoon.

• Homemade stock is more economical: We're all watching our budgets these days, and the fact that I can make something from scraps that would normally cost upwards of $2.00 a quart is nothing short of kitchen alchemy. I'm curious to see if the number of chickens I roast will give me the amount of stock I usually need, but even saving a few dollars a month will be welcome.

And now we'd love to hear from you. If you already make homemade stock, how do you fit it into your routine? And if don't, what do you think prevents you from doing it?

(Image: Flickr member Merelymel13 licensed under Creative Commons)

posted originally from: TheKitchn

Comments (11)

I make veggie stock about once a month, usually on a weekend day. I just throw all my veggie odds and ends, plus whole onion and garlic (skin on) into a large crock pot and let it cook all day. Everything is minimally chunked up into large-ish pieces, because I'm lazy. At the end of the day, I strain the stock into freezer containers, leave it in the fridge overnight to cool, then move it all to the freezer the next day.

Total time commitment on my part is about 30-45 minutes, tops.

I make chicken stock in the slow-cooker the day after a roast chicken. Just remove any meat to save for other purposes, put carcass in the slow cooker with an onion and a bit of rosemary, fill with water and set on low for the entire day. Then I don't even have to be in the house as it's cooking.

We make our veggie stock out of scraps too, or bulk up a chicken stock with veggie scraps. We just save all our carrot butts and peels, celery ends and leaves, onion ends and skins, extra broccoli stalk, the green parts of leeks, the white parts of green onion, the stems of herbs etc. in a bag in the freezer. Once the bag is full, it's time to make stock. Usually we don't even add anything else, except maybe another onion or some leeks and perhaps some herbs.

I usually do a big batch to freeze with the Thanksgiving turkey bones. I'm not so good at doing the little batches throughout the year, but I never thought of using the crock pot.

In the winter and cooler weather, I make stock until the freezer is full. And then I'll start saving chicken and turkey bones and vegetable bits to make more. Once there are more bits than stock, it's time to make more. The stock gets stored in reusable containers in the freezer and usually a big jar or two in the fridge to use immediately. Goes into soup, risotto, congee, sauces, and stews.

I usually make a batch of stock per roast chicken. As soon as we are done eating dinner, we pull all the meat from the carcass and we store what's left of the meat in the freezer. Fat, some of the skin, all the vegetables peels (of the roast) dried herbs and garlic goes in a big pot of water and I simmer the thing until 2 hours before going to bed, cool it down and then store it in the fridge. The next night I skim some of the fat off and then I put in in ziploc bags.

I'm planning to purchase a big stock pot (for preserves and canning) so I will probably start the freeze multiple carcasses technique...which seems a bit less trouble than several batches!

I usually use vegetable bouillon and throw it into a pot of water if a recipe calls for veggie stock. I don't buy whole cans or cartons of stock because of the price and the bouillon is cheap by comparison. I don't make my own because I already cook so much as it is. I literally don't have another hour in my week to make stock when I can be making cakes, enchiladas, or yeasty bread. I pretty much make everything from scratch so stock is where I take it easy. But maybe one of these weekends I'll tackle the veggie stock!

I often avoid making chicken stock because for some reason I've got it in my head that it's more nutritious/better tasting to make stock from new bone-in chicken rather than leftover bones. But when I go to the trouble of buying the chicken, I then decide that it's a waste to use the chicken for stock rather than an actual dish. So then, stock never gets made.

Does anyone else suffer from this dilemma? Maybe it's a cultural thing (asian) or just a familial thing (this is how my mom makes stock).

I make veggie stock occasionally, but usually just use the super concentrated stuff. When I do it is to go with part of a dish, I don't freeze it. I don't use that much stock though.

Ditto on the crock pot method. I keep an old plastic salad bin in the freezer to keep veggie scraps and parmesan rinds until I'm ready to throw them into the pot.

Often I will just boil a whole chicken with leftover veggies that have been accumulating in the freezer over the previous few weeks plus herbs and salt and pepper. Strip the chicken down to the bones and saute to use as great sandwich meat, on salads, etc. Throw all the bones and skin back into the stock and simmer for as long as possible. Once you go homemade stock you never go back!