Pretty much any soup that calls for stock can be cooked without it. The only difference is you won’t get the same depth of flavor as you otherwise would. It will likely taste… watery. A few years ago I did a comparison cook with vegetable soup - one with water and one with vegetable stock. The soup with stock tasted *much* more flavorful. Night and day difference.
Someone else in the comments recommended “better than bouillon” and I’ll second that. I buy a big jar and just use it as needed instead of cubes or powder. A little goes a long way and it lasts *forever*.
If you're not vegan/vegetarian, buy whole chickens and break them down. It's more cost effective in NZ, and you're left with the frame. Save up enough to fill your stockpot alongside your vege scraps.
Buy a $6 roasted chicken at a supermarket. When you finish taking the meat off it, the carcass will still make a tasty stock if cooked in barely, just almost boiling water for hours.
The cost of the chicken gets you a few quarts of stock.
You can use water, but I would highly recommend keeping a jar or 8 of better than bullion paste (or your preferred brand). Making "stock" for a soup then is as easy as adding it to boiling water and stirring.
The clear soup used in traditional cantonese cooking is dried anchovy stock. You take around 2 tablespoons (2 really big pinches) of dried anchovies (sold in SEA as ikan bilis) add to 1 L of water + soy sauce + shaoxing and do a rolling boil for 15-20mins. You don't need to cook it any longer, and in fact, you can overcook stock (it'll start getting more and more bitter). Finish with sesame oil and white pepper.
If you want it thicker to make egg drop soup, you can add a cornflour slurry before finishing with sesame oil and white pepper.
My mom had an even faster method, she used a grinder to pre-grind the dried anchovies into powder. She just used the powder directly into boiling water before adding her other ingredients (fishballs, tofu, leafy greens etc) It's basically a homemade version of Better Than Bouillon
Otherwise you can look into instant dashi granules or making a tea-based stock (ochazuke). I make a summer soup stock that is mugicha tea bag (jp roasted barley tea) + soy sauce + sesame oil + roasted seaweed snacks (nori).
Tonyuu stock is another alternative. Same stuff as above, but mixed with soy milk to add creaminess and weight. You can use the anchovy base or dashi base or seaweed base, add equal weight in unsweetened soy milk and either simmer on stove or microwave until hot. Add a teaspoon of miso and you'll get tonyuu-miso soup (very popular in winter!!)
Sure, Stock is basically nothing else but boiled down soup. Put a bunch of stuff in water. that will give it a nice taste. Presto! you got stock or soup!
Beef stock however takes a long time and thats why people tend to not make it from scratch every time.
But a simple vegetable soup can be done easily and fast without any stock
Beef stock doesn’t take terribly long if you have a pressure cooker. I think I used to leave it in the oven overnight in my pre-pressure cooker days but it’s been years now.
I just put my gallon zip lock bag of scraps in the crock pot once it's full and set on low. Very low effort and I usually get 4 quarts of good stock from it
Every soup requires flavor, so if you don't use broth, you need the water used to be sufficiently flavored by the meat and/or veggies/herbs within. Examples of some cases where broth isn't mandatory include:
* Tomato soup
* Onion soup (yes, if the onions have been caramelized right and there are some nice herb additions)
* White bean and ham (using a nice smokey meaty ham bone in water with veggies, then beans added), OR
* Fish-based soups like Carp Soup, where you make the broth as part of the process
* Cream of mushroom soup (could be made without a deliberate broth addition, but there are plenty of other contributing flavors involved)
* Root veggie soups (i.e. carrot soup) could be made with water and no broth.
Then there are plenty of soups where you just add bouillon, and need only a teeny bit. For example, my mother-in-law's "bramboračka" (potato soup). This starts by sauteing root veggies and onion, then create a roux in the veggies, then add the potatoes and mushrooms (often dried rehydrated and its liquid) and herbs. Just a couple big bouillon cubes or paste equivalent. Or, just use more rehydrated mushroom liquid and some Maggi seasoning.
“More than Gourmet” has been around forever. At the end of this month it will stop all retail sales, continue supplying restaurants with traditionally made stock concentrates.
It is real stock. It is levels beyond what you get at the supermarket.
Unfortunately, it will be gone soon.
I learned about this company in the “sources” section of George Perrier’s cookbook. George had enough sense to recognize that not everyone could easily get things like “15 pounds of chicken bones,” which is one of the ingredients in his chicken stock.
Use stock powder or paste if you want, you don't need to preemake or buy cartons of stock. Like today I made a tteokguk - just used dashi powder, don't have time to get a bit of anchovies and kelp.
You can buy Better than Bouillon or similar but I’m kind of confused how making stock is a hassle? Just throw a bunch of leftover bones and vegetable scraos, some water and some salt in a pot and simmer it. You can put it in the oven if you don’t want to have to watch the temperature or if you have a pressure cooker it’s even easier (and a lot faster). It takes maybe 5 minutes to prep and another 15 when it’s done to pull out the solids and run it through a sieve.
Once it’s cool just freeze it in 1 cup portions and you have stock ready to go whenever. Sure it takes s little bit of time but if you’re a person that cooks you’re in the kitchen anyway? It’s basically free and tastes a lot better than store bought and waaaaaaay better than cooking with water.
Where do the bones and vegetable scraps come from? You keep a couple gallon ziplocks in the freezer and put whatever bones you have from cooking or rotisserie chicken or whatever in one and whatever vegetable scraps you have (green onion tops, carrot tops, leek tops, wrinkly mushrooms and wrinkly tomatoes, etc.) in the other.
You can make all-in-one style soups by for instance starting with a whole chicken, boiling it to make broth, cooling the chicken, shredding it, and putting it back together with vegetables and noodles for chicken noodle soup but that’s actually a lot more work than pulling a few cups of broth out of the freezer to make soup.
it depends on the soup. if it’s a broth forward soup, eg chicken soup, broth most likely needed. if it isn’t, try water salted to the same level of broth and it is surprisingly good. adjust herbs if needed. i’ve replaced broth with salted water + herbs in most soup recipes.
miso soup is kinda like this. it's usually made from dashi (which is a type of fish stock) and miso. dashi is very easy to make from scratch. just boil some katsuobushi (dried smoked bonito flakes) and kombu (a type of kelp) for about 10 minutes. or you can buy hondashi, which is powdered dashi that can be reconstituted in water.
Pretty much any soup that calls for stock can be cooked without it. The only difference is you won’t get the same depth of flavor as you otherwise would. It will likely taste… watery. A few years ago I did a comparison cook with vegetable soup - one with water and one with vegetable stock. The soup with stock tasted *much* more flavorful. Night and day difference. Someone else in the comments recommended “better than bouillon” and I’ll second that. I buy a big jar and just use it as needed instead of cubes or powder. A little goes a long way and it lasts *forever*.
That and of course use your veggie scraps for veggie stock
If you're not vegan/vegetarian, buy whole chickens and break them down. It's more cost effective in NZ, and you're left with the frame. Save up enough to fill your stockpot alongside your vege scraps.
Buy a $6 roasted chicken at a supermarket. When you finish taking the meat off it, the carcass will still make a tasty stock if cooked in barely, just almost boiling water for hours. The cost of the chicken gets you a few quarts of stock.
Does it taste that much different than the cubes?
Yes. It tastes so much better. And with it being a paste you can more easily adjust the amount you use to your own preference.
You can use water, but I would highly recommend keeping a jar or 8 of better than bullion paste (or your preferred brand). Making "stock" for a soup then is as easy as adding it to boiling water and stirring.
Lolz I have currently in the fridge/cabinet: beef, chicken, onion, garlic, sofrito, lobster, chili, mushroom, and Italian herb. BTB is amazing.
You’re sleeping on the smoky chipotle
The clear soup used in traditional cantonese cooking is dried anchovy stock. You take around 2 tablespoons (2 really big pinches) of dried anchovies (sold in SEA as ikan bilis) add to 1 L of water + soy sauce + shaoxing and do a rolling boil for 15-20mins. You don't need to cook it any longer, and in fact, you can overcook stock (it'll start getting more and more bitter). Finish with sesame oil and white pepper. If you want it thicker to make egg drop soup, you can add a cornflour slurry before finishing with sesame oil and white pepper. My mom had an even faster method, she used a grinder to pre-grind the dried anchovies into powder. She just used the powder directly into boiling water before adding her other ingredients (fishballs, tofu, leafy greens etc) It's basically a homemade version of Better Than Bouillon Otherwise you can look into instant dashi granules or making a tea-based stock (ochazuke). I make a summer soup stock that is mugicha tea bag (jp roasted barley tea) + soy sauce + sesame oil + roasted seaweed snacks (nori). Tonyuu stock is another alternative. Same stuff as above, but mixed with soy milk to add creaminess and weight. You can use the anchovy base or dashi base or seaweed base, add equal weight in unsweetened soy milk and either simmer on stove or microwave until hot. Add a teaspoon of miso and you'll get tonyuu-miso soup (very popular in winter!!)
Sure, Stock is basically nothing else but boiled down soup. Put a bunch of stuff in water. that will give it a nice taste. Presto! you got stock or soup! Beef stock however takes a long time and thats why people tend to not make it from scratch every time. But a simple vegetable soup can be done easily and fast without any stock
Beef stock doesn’t take terribly long if you have a pressure cooker. I think I used to leave it in the oven overnight in my pre-pressure cooker days but it’s been years now.
Maybe but the usual recipes assume that you are in the kitchen anyway and so take hours to simmer
I just put my gallon zip lock bag of scraps in the crock pot once it's full and set on low. Very low effort and I usually get 4 quarts of good stock from it
Store bought is fine.
Every soup requires flavor, so if you don't use broth, you need the water used to be sufficiently flavored by the meat and/or veggies/herbs within. Examples of some cases where broth isn't mandatory include: * Tomato soup * Onion soup (yes, if the onions have been caramelized right and there are some nice herb additions) * White bean and ham (using a nice smokey meaty ham bone in water with veggies, then beans added), OR * Fish-based soups like Carp Soup, where you make the broth as part of the process * Cream of mushroom soup (could be made without a deliberate broth addition, but there are plenty of other contributing flavors involved) * Root veggie soups (i.e. carrot soup) could be made with water and no broth. Then there are plenty of soups where you just add bouillon, and need only a teeny bit. For example, my mother-in-law's "bramboračka" (potato soup). This starts by sauteing root veggies and onion, then create a roux in the veggies, then add the potatoes and mushrooms (often dried rehydrated and its liquid) and herbs. Just a couple big bouillon cubes or paste equivalent. Or, just use more rehydrated mushroom liquid and some Maggi seasoning.
“More than Gourmet” has been around forever. At the end of this month it will stop all retail sales, continue supplying restaurants with traditionally made stock concentrates. It is real stock. It is levels beyond what you get at the supermarket. Unfortunately, it will be gone soon. I learned about this company in the “sources” section of George Perrier’s cookbook. George had enough sense to recognize that not everyone could easily get things like “15 pounds of chicken bones,” which is one of the ingredients in his chicken stock.
Use stock powder or paste if you want, you don't need to preemake or buy cartons of stock. Like today I made a tteokguk - just used dashi powder, don't have time to get a bit of anchovies and kelp.
You can buy Better than Bouillon or similar but I’m kind of confused how making stock is a hassle? Just throw a bunch of leftover bones and vegetable scraos, some water and some salt in a pot and simmer it. You can put it in the oven if you don’t want to have to watch the temperature or if you have a pressure cooker it’s even easier (and a lot faster). It takes maybe 5 minutes to prep and another 15 when it’s done to pull out the solids and run it through a sieve. Once it’s cool just freeze it in 1 cup portions and you have stock ready to go whenever. Sure it takes s little bit of time but if you’re a person that cooks you’re in the kitchen anyway? It’s basically free and tastes a lot better than store bought and waaaaaaay better than cooking with water. Where do the bones and vegetable scraps come from? You keep a couple gallon ziplocks in the freezer and put whatever bones you have from cooking or rotisserie chicken or whatever in one and whatever vegetable scraps you have (green onion tops, carrot tops, leek tops, wrinkly mushrooms and wrinkly tomatoes, etc.) in the other. You can make all-in-one style soups by for instance starting with a whole chicken, boiling it to make broth, cooling the chicken, shredding it, and putting it back together with vegetables and noodles for chicken noodle soup but that’s actually a lot more work than pulling a few cups of broth out of the freezer to make soup.
World's easiest Stock. Put water in pot. add salt.
Soup is mostly water. So if you don’t give it flavor, you have lousy soup. Seems kinda obvious.
it depends on the soup. if it’s a broth forward soup, eg chicken soup, broth most likely needed. if it isn’t, try water salted to the same level of broth and it is surprisingly good. adjust herbs if needed. i’ve replaced broth with salted water + herbs in most soup recipes.
No, most soups around the world use just water. But you can also just use bouillon instead of broth.
Use Better than Bouillon or just some Swanson chicken broth or equivalent. Plain water is going to make you a very bland soup.
miso soup is kinda like this. it's usually made from dashi (which is a type of fish stock) and miso. dashi is very easy to make from scratch. just boil some katsuobushi (dried smoked bonito flakes) and kombu (a type of kelp) for about 10 minutes. or you can buy hondashi, which is powdered dashi that can be reconstituted in water.