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The Perfect Vegetable Stock
What's great about it
The secret to making a good soup comes down to using a good stock. I love making my own vegetable stock at home, as they are much healthier than store-bought, normally reconstituted powders loaded with salt, MSG, flavours and dextrins.
Making your stock is a great way of using up vegetables you may have lying around in the fridge. My basic stock recipe consists of onion, carrot, celery, leek, bay leaves, white peppercorn and sweetcorn, that are simmered in a large pot for an hour and then strained. You can find the recipe in my cookbook Purely Delicious. Another way of making a healthier vegetable stock is to blend all the ingredients into a stock paste. Divide into ice cube containers is small containers that you can freeze into portions. Use your stock cubes straight out of the freezer to flavour soups, sauces and nourishing stews. The full recipe for my stock paste is in my book Earth To Table.
Ingredients
2 onions, halved with skin
4 carrots, roughly chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1 leek, chopped
1 sweetcorn
4 litres of filtered hot water from the kettle
handful parsley stalks
3 bayleaves
1 teaspoon white peppercorns (12 total)
Method
- Combine all the vegetables and aromatics into a large pot and fill with hot water.
- Bring to a boil.
- Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1 hour.
- Strain and discard solids or blend into a soup.
- Store stock for 4 days in the fridge or freeze in portions until required.
Notes and Inspiration
I also love to add sweet potato or pumpkin which adds a sweeter note to the final stock. If I'm making immunity-boosting soups then I also love to throw in ginger, garlic and turmeric for their anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties.