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How do you make soup stock?

— Larry Bonn
Stockton, California

There are several ways to make soup stock, depending on what kind of soup you’re making. The important thing is that you do actually make a stock—instead of starting with water—because that’s what makes soups wonderful and complex.

The basic method is to add flavorful ingredients to cold water and bring it to a boil. You can use a wide variety of ingredients, such as veggies (roughly chopped, peels and all), herbs, spices, meat (with or without skin), bones and seafood shells. If you’re a vegetarian, don’t worry—you can make a wonderfully rich stock with no meat. Then just let it all simmer for a couple hours. Strain out the liquid and refrigerate, freeze or use immediately as the base of your next scrumptious soup. For more detailed instructions on the basics of soup-making, check out Warming Winter Soups.

— Tabitha Alterman, senior associate editor, Mother Earth News 

Comments

  • pam 7/19/2008 9:06:56 AM

    the chicken feet does work , the old Romanian could of ben on of my relatives.

  • artizan 6/11/2008 10:26:29 AM

    Chicken Feet - An old Romanian woman once shared a secret to
    good chicken stock. You scrub the feet and put them in the pot. It
    makes delicious soup.......the flavor is in the feet.. I use a
    pressure cooker when making stock from old roosters whose meat can
    be a lot like the texture of wood. They will yield some good broth
    and if you are lucky, maybe some edible meat as well.

  • rdropkick 4/24/2008 5:05:32 PM

    The very best thing to make soup stocks in is the pressure
    cooker. You can find many different pressure cookers in the store
    today. I recommend you buy one with the extra heavy bottom. You can
    make the best soups stocks in less than an hour! The pressure
    cooker will come with a recipe book with the basic stocks of
    chicken,beef,pork and vegetable. You can't go wrong. Rick

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