You can use various vegetable scraps and trimmings to create flavourful vegetable stock.
Making vegetable stock is an excellent way to minimize food waste and extract maximum value from your produce. Instead of discarding parts like peels, ends, and trimmings, you can transform them into a flavourful base for soups, stews, sauces, and more.
Based on common practice and reliable sources, several parts of everyday vegetables are perfect for stock. These include:
- Onions: Utilize onions of any kind, including shallots. This includes the skin, top, and root end.
- Scallions: You can use anything you don't use from scallions.
- Garlic: Add garlic skin, any trim, and even the germ (if you typically remove it).
- Carrots: The skin, root, and tips of carrots are suitable for stock.
- Celery: Use any and all of it. While celery leaves can be used, they are often better suited for flavouring soups and salads directly rather than stock.
Here's a quick summary of these key ingredients and the parts you can save for stock:
| Vegetable | Usable Parts for Stock |
|---|---|
| Onions | Skin, top, root end (any kind) |
| Scallions | Anything you don't use |
| Garlic | Skin, trim, germ |
| Carrots | Skin, root, tips |
| Celery | Any and all (leaves can be used elsewhere) |
Saving these scraps in a bag or container in your freezer until you have enough is a practical way to collect material for your next batch of homemade vegetable stock.
